No! Mute!

A story from my Spanish high school.

I was in one of the English classes when the students, the teacher and I started talking about how someone can't hear and being deaf. Then one of the students mentioned that when you are deaf, you are also usually 'mudo.' You can't speak. (This conversation was in Spanish.)

Another student asked the English teacher, "Teacher, how do you say 'mudo' in English?'

He went to the board and wrote it down, and then asked me, "This is how you spell it, right?"

When I looked at the board and saw what was written, I practically fell off my seat. On the board the word written was: Dumb!

I started laughing, thinking it was a joke, but the teacher looked at me confused. "Deaf and dumb, no?" he asked, confused.

"No!" I said, horrified. "It's deaf and MUTE! Dumb means stupid."

The teacher was mortified. He couldn't believe it. Someone had taught him the saying, "Deaf and dumb" and that dumb meant mute. He was even more horrified when he remembered he taught the word mute as dumb to last years students.

Glad I'm here to clarify proper English!