Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

We'll be working on this problem for the next 40 years,  and the technologies we need for the job are yet to be invented.

That statement sounds like dry English humor to comment on some impossible mission.   But if you switch your mindset to a different culture, say,  imagine that it is uttered by Japanese nuclear engineers,  it suddenly sounds different,  somehow surprising and poignant for its guileless optimism.

That could be just my own too prejudged mind on cultures, but if you feel the same, it just shows that cultures can change what you say upside down.