Fat black woman: Hey, watch where you’re going! Say “excuse me” instead of bumping into me like that. Don’t you know how to speak English?
Japanese girl: You need a diet!
–Penn station
Overheard by: JL
Fat black woman: Hey, watch where you’re going! Say “excuse me” instead of bumping into me like that. Don’t you know how to speak English?
Japanese girl: You need a diet!
–Penn station
Overheard by: JL
Drunk girl, to owner of pizza place: Hasta mañana!
Drunk guy: That’s not Italian!
Drunk girl: He’s not Italian, he’s Greek! He speaks Yiddish and Greek!
–30th & 3rd
Businessman: She said there’s an area in Brooklyn where all they speak is Russian. You can go blocks without hearing English. They refuse to speak it.
–Midtown office
Man running by with dog to teenage girl: Woof!
Teenage girl to friend: He better have been talking to the dog.
–Central Park
Earnest toddler in stroller, pointing at gorilla: Nuula blujunbabalooo.
Babysitter: Seriously?
Earnest toddler: Yeah!
–Bronx Zoo
Overheard by: Olivia
Girl: Oh my god.
Guy: Can’t you just say OMG?
–The Whitney
Wannabe Jew: Shprehen ze Deutche?
Religious Jew: Huh?
Wannabe Jew: Isn't that how you say “do you speak Yiddish?” in Yiddish?
Religious Jew: No.
(wannabe Jew looks around and walks away)
–Brooklyn Public Library
Saleslady: Hi, miss, can I help you?
Woman: No, that’s okay, I have my daughter with me.
Saleslady: Are you sure you dont need any help?
Woman: Yes, I am sure. My daughter is quite the fashionada. She gives me the best opinions.
Saleslady, to another saleslady: What’s a fashionada? New Yorkers have their own language or something.
–Barney’s
Overheard by: ash sauer
Law student to little girl with pink balloon dog: I really like your balloon! It's so pretty!
Girl's dad: What do you say?
Little girl: Woof woof!
–79th & 2nd
Professor: So what do we know about these debt notes?" (silence) So what do *I* know about these debt notes, that obviously you don't know?
–NYU Law School
Overheard by: Ames
Professor: My favorite words to hear are "just do nothing." My second favorites are "open bar."
–College of Mount Saint Vincent, Bronx
Environmental history professor: Look at some of the items on this menu from a hotel of Chicago Thanksgiving dinner from 1872: loin of buffalo, antelope steak in mushroom sauce, ham of bear, black tail deer, leg of mountain sheep, buffalo tongue… Miss Palin, your table is ready.
–Classroom, Fordham University
Overheard by: Martin Van Nostrand
Linguistics professor, about Spanish-speaking families who live in Spanish-speaking neighborhoods: The only English these people hear is from their landlords and social workers.
–NYU Silver Center
Overheard by: Latka Hero
NYU professor: So we're going to be walking, and you'll notice I walk pretty fast. But we're in New York, and you're supposed to walk like you know exactly where you're going in life and nothing is in your way. Because if you slow down you'll get mugged. (beat) It's dog eat dog, people.
–NYU Classroom
Russian literature professor: Oh my god, you just totally missed the point of Jesus!
–NYU Classroom
