When Norman landed in the United States at age 18, he needed to find a job. One of the jobs he held—only briefly—was as a dishwasher at a restaurant.

In addition to washing the dishes, he was occasionally called upon to retrieve certain items from the walk-in refrigerator or storeroom. Unfortunately for him, he had never even heard of many of the items he was requested to get.

There were just so many new varieties of fruits, vegetables and other foods here in the US compared to what they had in Northern Ireland (which still had wartime rations until he left in 1954).

And of course, he was still getting used to the American accent, and ways of speaking. So when he was told to go get something, he did his damnedest to remember the sounds of the words and tried to find any spelling that might be close to what he had heard.

Sometimes he’d be successful, other times, not so much. But it always took him far longer than the boss would have expected.

He was summarily fired.