Things you didn't know but everyone else did

[ivylass]

I got the inspiration for this thread from watching Trading Spaces last week. Doug is up on a ladder, and he has various screwdrivers and such inserted in the holes at the top of the ladder.

"How clever!" I cried out, pointing it out to my husband. "That way you don't have to worry about sticking them in your pocket or getting up and down off the ladder."

He looked at me like I was a complete moron, then started shaking his head in that, "Jeez, she's dumb but I love her" way.

Seriously, I never knew what those holes in the top of the ladder were for.

Anyone one else have a late "epiphany?"

[Liberal]

I didn't know that sergers existed until a couple of years ago.

[Lightnin']

Until sometime around my 30th birthday, I never knew that if you turned a t-shirt inside out before washing it, the imprint would last longer.

[Earl of Sandwhich]

Until 1995 (age 17) I thought a confessor was one who confessed, rather than the one a person confesses to.

[friedo]

Originally posted by Libertarian
I didn't know that sergers existed until a couple of years ago.

:confused: What's a serger? It doesn't appear in my dictionary.

[Liberal]

Sergers (http://www.store.allbrands.com/serger.html)

[Morbo]

I didn't know that you couldn't remove the fabric coverings from couch cushions and put them in the washing machine for cleaning. Based on the responses to the GQ thread I started on the subject, I was the only Doper who didn't.

(Alas, the thread was swallowed up in the Winter Of Our Missed Content™)

[Cessandra]

If you can't wash them, why do they have zippers?

[Liberal]

So they can be dry-cleaned.

[cichlidiot]

I didn't know that until now either ivy. The one that comes to mind for me has to do with boxing. When I was little, I asked how one of the boxers wins the bout and was told, "He has to knock that guy clear out of the ring!" I'm not sure at what point I realized this wasn't true, but I do remember being a teenager and when asked the same question, my first thought was what I had been told initially.

I remember that thread Dooku, laughed until I had tears.:p

[delphica]

There's a Dorothy Sayers mystery novel called "Have His Carcase."

For years, WELL INTO MY ADULT LIFE, I thought that a carcase was some sort of case you put in a car. It made sense, Lord Peter has all sorts of interesting gentleman's luggage that isn't so common anymore, and Bunter is always running around packing things up. Steamer trunk, suitcase, carcase, why not?

It turns out (as the rest of the world knows) that carcase is the other spelling of carcass, the former being more common in the UK. I shared this great insight with Mr. Del, who was astonished to learn I was such an idiot. He also pointed out the fact that it is the title of a MURDER MYSTERY NOVEL should have given me some clue.

[maralinn]

I found out only a few years ago that Bambi (yes, the Disney cartoon fawn) was a GUY! I could hardly imagine a male character, of any species, named "Bambi," which is obviously a name for female strippers and porn stars.

What kind of father would allow his son to be named Bambi?

[Morbo]

Originally posted by cichlidiot
I remember that thread Dooku, laughed until I had tears.:p

It's funny now. It wasn't so funny then. :)

(My wife still has no idea anything out of the ordinary has ever happened to "the Hendredon.")

[MeanOldLady]

What a WAG is. I'd seen in at least a jillion times on these boards and couldn't figure out what it was but was too embarrassed to ask. Everyone was using it except me. I figured by the context it was something along the lines of a stab in the dark at something, but I didn't know exactly what it stood for. Finally I threw my hands up and proclaimed, "to hell with this!!!" and looked it up in an acronym finder. No idea why it took me so long to do so.

[urban1a]

Does this fit here?

Until about 3 years ago, whenever I would open a bottle of soda and it would start fizzing, I ran to the sink, dripping soda all over the floor. One day when this happened, it occurred to me that all I needed to do was retighten the cap. Sure enough this worked perfectly. I'm not quite sure why it took me so long to figure it out. I'm 64 yo now.

Bob

[tesseract]

Without thinking much about it, I sort of absently always thought that all those buses were going to some place called "Laidlaw." I must have thought it was a really populated place! I only realized the real deal about 10 years ago (I'm 30) when I said aloud to a friend, "Where's Laidlaw?!!" --- exactly at the moment, even before seeing her incredulous look, I knew.

[cichlidiot]

Originally posted by Dooku
It's funny now. It wasn't so funny then. :)

(My wife still has no idea anything out of the ordinary has ever happened to "the Hendredon.")

Glad to hear it, that was one of my favorite threads.

Back to the OP. I thought of another one that's more recent. I realized during the last James Bond marathon that the image we see is a view through a gun. I always thought it was supposed to be an artsy image of the musculature of the eye, you know I'm looking through someone else's eye...spying? My SO pretty much rolled when I told him this.:o

[HelloKitty]

Originally posted by tesseract
Without thinking much about it, I sort of absently always thought that all those buses were going to some place called "Laidlaw." I must have thought it was a really populated place! I only realized the real deal about 10 years ago (I'm 30) when I said aloud to a friend, "Where's Laidlaw?!!" --- exactly at the moment, even before seeing her incredulous look, I knew.

I guess I'm still in the dark on this one...

Have no idea of what you are talking about.

[LifeOnWry]

Uh... where is Laidlaw?

Until last summer, I did not know that the correct phrase is "BY accident." I have always said "on accident" and no one had ever bothered to correct me until then, when TWO people burst out in guffaws.

I probably shouldn't admit that I make part of my living from my writing, huh?

[Booker57]

www.laidlawschoolbus.com
I have a friend that works for them. Bus mechanic. Well paying job, good working conditions.

[sidle]

Based on responses to a thread I started today in IMHO, everyone except me knew not to look at the welders and why.

[Greywolf73]

In the ER one night while I was pregnant with my son, I had to have blood drawn. Afterwards, my arm began to bleed around the edge of the bandaid.
My husband very helpfully asked me if I needed a "gau" to clean it up.

A gau? I had no idea what he was talking about until he handed me a piece of gauze. Yes, my husband thought gau was the singular form of gauze.

I...umm...can't think of any about myself. ;)

Okay, maybe one...until very recently, I didn't realize that toasters had a removable "crumb catcher". I found out by accident while moving the toaster one morning and knocked it open. Imagine my surprise when 4 years worth of breadcrumbs came pouring out!

[NoClueBoy]

I just now found out, from this very MB, that the universe is NOT Geocentric. Imagine my surprise!

I also didn't realise my ass is as big as it is. :eek:

[BadBaby]

Greywolf, you stole mine! With me it was a toaster oven and I'd spent the better part of an hour trying to clean the dern thing when I managed to pop open the little trap door.

Also, my sister referred to a single stocking as a 'panty ho' and had never considered that wasn't the right word.

[liirogue]

Hehehe, oh my little sis would kill me if she knew I was posting this... But the temptation is just too great :D

You know that song that Christina whats-her-face and all those others did called "Lady Marmalade"? Well, my uncle was asking me what "Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir" meant (since I had had French in school), and my sister indignantly replied "Duh you guys, it's not French, it's Spanish!" It took us two or three minutes to convince her otherwise! So now my uncle always sings "Voulex vous coucher avec moi, senor"
I can't do the little dealy over the "n" but you get what I mean.
Hehehe... we still laugh about this one.

[NoClueBoy]

ñ Ñ

Instructions (http://home.earthlink.net/~awinkelried/keyboard_shortcuts.html)

[Soup_du_jour]

Perhaps I've said this before somewhere else.

I just learned about a year ago that Elton John is gay. I guess it was just one of those things that everyone assumes everyone else knows, but nobody tells anyone else.

[Cardinal]

I didn't know that you couldn't remove the fabric coverings from couch cushions and put them in the washing machine for cleaning. I beg to differ, having actually done it.

We did remember to put the machine on COLD, though.

[ivylass]

I had a boyfriend in high school who didn't know women went through menopause. He thought we had periods until we died.

I pointed out to him that you don't see a lot of 80 year old mothers.

Funny thing was, he had three sisters.

[pingalondon]

This one isn't about me, but my usually amazingly intelligent partner (who sometimes posts on here so I must be careful...).

Until he was at University, he thought the air guitar was a REAL instrument.

He only worked it out when someone started playing along on the air drums!

[Legomancer]

To this day, despite having lived in University towns a lot, there's still a lot of drinking-related lingo that I don't know. I see things advertised all the time like "call brands" and have no idea what they mean. I've never been much of a drinker.

[carlotta]

well, the number of things I didn't know that other people did is vast. The clue bus never stops in my neighborhood.

Here is just one example: I had no idea until I actually bought a car (age 19) that cars needed to be "registered" or that you paid something called "personal property tax" on them.

[CrankyAsAnOldMan]

I never knew until another Doper told me LAST YEAR that Passover and Easter aren't just coincidentally around the same time. I didn't know that the last supper was a passover seder!

I was in my thirties before I realized that the written word "segue" was the verbal word I'd been hearing.

There are a lot of things I was clueless about--just can't recall more right now.

[Ego_Mk2]

MY whole life I never knew what biscuit gravy was until I told my bro-in-law about this weird white spicy sausage soup I had at Thanksgiving in college.

[cowgirl]

About five years ago I had a friend whose boyfriend worked for Microsoft. And I had to do a school project with her, and noticed that when she wanted to open a document on her computer, she would save the changes and close the one she was working on, open the new one, then close it and re-open the original one.

She didn't know that you could have more than one document open at once!

I asked her just what she thought 'Windows' meant ...

[Bricker]

Originally posted by CrankyAsAnOldMan
I was in my thirties before I realized that the written word "segue" was the verbal word I'd been hearing.

I had a lot of those -- I was a voracious reader, but didn't get a chance to use these words in conversation.

So I was humiliated over epitome, which I had been loftily pronouncing eh-PI-tome, and ennui, which I was offering as en-YOU-eye.

Both of those were high-school moments I'd rather forget.

- Rick

[SandyHook]

I had not a clue about how to do things like Ø, ä, or ® until NoClueBoy's fine post.

No longer will I have to mutter to myself when posting, "Yeah, my writing doesn't need those cutesy thingies. Yeah, that's why I don't use them."

Signed:
ƒ_ÇÉ»±§

[lindsay.reid]

I had a boyfriend in high school who was valedictorian of his class. Yet he (at age 18) didn't know the difference between a dress and a skirt. He thought "dress" just meant it was long and a "skirt" referred to everything above the knee.

[panache]

Bricker,
I feel ya- My mom was the one who caught me sometime around age 12 discussing how one of the heroines in my latest novel had been "mizzled" (misled)....I was floored, I knew that "miss-led" was a word too, it had just never occured to me that the similarity in meaning indicated a certain...relationship. She still laughs at me sometimes. Sigh, the curse of being young and well-read.

[B.Pants]

There's an old joke:

Pete and Repete were in a boat. Pete fell out. Who was left?
Repete, of course.
Pete and Repete...

As a child, I loved that joke. I thought the humor came from being asked who was left, when it was so obvious who was left. I would tell it with either boy falling out. I didn't get it until I was 15. Repete? Repeat? Ah ha ha ha! I felt more than a little stupid.

[NYR407]

About 15 years ago I was playing pictionary and I was supposed to draw "spatula". I looked at the word and could not for the life of me figure out what a Spa-two-la was. I finally gave up and told them I had no idea what I was supposed to draw.

Laughter ensued after they informed me that it was a spatch-u-la.

[lno]

Until two years ago I didn't know that Jerry Lewis and Jerry Lee Lewis were separate people.

[Kalhoun]

Greywolf said, "In the ER one night while I was pregnant with my son, I had to have blood drawn. Afterwards, my arm began to bleed around the edge of the bandaid.
My husband very helpfully asked me if I needed a "gau" to clean it up.

A gau? I had no idea what he was talking about until he handed me a piece of gauze. Yes, my husband thought gau was the singular form of gauze. "

That's hilarious! My sister thought a single article of clothing was a "clo" and two articles was "clothes". She'd always ask my mom if she could get a new clo when they went shopping.

[Breezy]

B.Pants mine is a lot like yours.

When I was younger, anytime I said "Hey dad, you know what?!?"

he'd reply "No, but I know Who."

I thought that was the stupidest thing to say. I always thought he was implying that he didn't know what I was going to tell him but he knew WHO I was talking about. :smack:

When I was about 22, I turned to my boyfriend and said "Hey! You know what?" and it HIT me!!! haha I started laughing and laughing and laughing.

Not because the joke is all that funny, but because over my 22 years on earth I'd never once "got' my dad's joke. haha

My boyfriend (husband now) also thought it was hilarious. It was one of those moments where I was trying to tell him why I was laughing so hard, and it took me about half an hour to get it out.

What a ditz. haha

[RealityChuck]

Originally posted by Kalhoun
Greywolf said, "In the ER one night while I was pregnant with my son, I had to have blood drawn. Afterwards, my arm began to bleed around the edge of the bandaid.
My husband very helpfully asked me if I needed a "gau" to clean it up.

A gau? I had no idea what he was talking about until he handed me a piece of gauze. Yes, my husband thought gau was the singular form of gauze. "

That's hilarious! My sister thought a single article of clothing was a "clo" and two articles was "clothes". She'd always ask my mom if she could get a new clo when they went shopping.
Actually, that's a type of word formation. "Pea" (from "Pease") and "Cherry" (from "cherise") were formed exactly the same way. Maybe your father was just ahead of the curve.

For awhile, I thought the "exit only" signs on highways meant that if you took the exit accidentally, you could not get back on the road you were leaving. Eventually, I realized it meant the lane was for exiting only.

[dwc1970]

My father related a funny little story from his college days. When he was getting registered for his classes everyone kept telling him to go see Dean Smith, then Dean Jones, then Dean Brown, etc. (names made up) My dad thought to himself, "wow, there sure are a lot of people named Dean around here." He had no idea that a dean was a title!

[NoClueBoy]

As a naive young boy during the mid to late 1960s (A.D.), I had a friend who's older sister was pregnant. I asked, "How can she be pregnant? She's not even married!"

I was being taught the birds and bees quite well, thank you very much, I just hadn't ever made the connection that non married people could have sex. :dubious:

Oh, to be six again.

Well, actually... I'm glad I got over that hurdle fairly early in life.

[Mith]

I was 14 when I finally found out that "hunormous" was NOT A WORD.

I guess when I was young, I blended enormous and huge together and nobody had the heart to tell me it wasnt legit until I hit highschool.

I'm 25 and I'm still not sure... do birds have sex?

[Sparklo]

I used to think there was a band named Haulin' Oats. Now I know better (http://www.hallandoates.com).

[smalltowngirl]

When I was about 9, the four members of my family were going home in my mom's convertible MGB. (Yes 4 - mom driving, dad in the passenger seat holding my 4-yr old brother, and me riding the hump with my legs wedged behind the two seats). Mom was trying to "beat the rain home", and hit a corner at about 35-miles an hour.

Needless to say, we slid head-on into the nearest telephone pole. If I HADN'T had my feet wedged behind the two seats, I would have flown out over the windshield and slammed head-first into the telephone pole. As it was, I scraped the hell out of my shins and broke the rear-view mirror with my forehead. Dad squished baby brother into the dash, busted bro's lip and had a bruise on his forehead - Mom had no booboo's at all. I remember being upset that night because mom and dad wouldn't let me go to sleep - they were worried I had a concussion and I just was tired, so why couldn't they leave me alone?

The next day at school, and for YEARS afterwards, when someone asked me what caused the wreck, I told them what dad told me that night, that "a nut behind the steering wheel" caused it. At 9, when he told me that, what I heard was that an actual nut, inside the steering column, had locked up, preventing mom from turning the car the right way on the road. It wasn't until I was in my early 20s that I caught the look on my mother-in-law's face and realized what exactly I had said.

Poor mom, I never understood why she left the room when I told that story. BTW, her and Dad divorced within a year of that incident....

STG

[Flutterby]

Originally posted by Bricker
I had a lot of those -- I was a voracious reader, but didn't get a chance to use these words in conversation.

So I was humiliated over epitome, which I had been loftily pronouncing eh-PI-tome, and ennui, which I was offering as en-YOU-eye.

Both of those were high-school moments I'd rather forget.

- Rick

You mean they aren't??? Wait.. I think I know epitome.. (e-pi-toe-me, right?) Buut what's ennui supposed to be then?

[TaxGuy]

On-we, dood.

[voguevixen]

It was ages before I realised that "fascimile machine" was not a fancy word for photocopier. I just sort of assumed you said "fascimile machine" when you were trying to sound snooty, like you'd say "manufactured housing community" instead of "trailer park." It wasn't until they became more common and I actually SAW one in action that I realised it wasn't the same at all. (Though at the time you could in a pinch make a really craptacular copy on the fax if you had to.)

My embarassing mis-pronounciation was "hirsute." For some reason I'd always read it as "hirsuite" and pronounced it "her-sweet."

It's pretty common, actually, I think. One day in our high school physics class the teacher had been going on for quite some time about something and finally someone asked him "Are you talking about the Himalayas?" He'd been pronouncing it "him-ALL-yas" the whole time.

[Stephe96]

I have no idea what "TMI" stands for in Doper-speak. I gather it indicates "adult content," but I can't for the life of me figure out what the actual words are....

[tanstaafl]

TMI = "Too Much Information". In other words, "this is probably more than you really wanted to know, but..."

[Max Carnage]

TMI=Too Much Information

Can be used in everyday conversation as in:

"Man I have this scap on my ass that just keeps..."
"Whoa, dude! TMI!"

[Stephe96]

Originally posted by Max Carnage
TMI=Too Much Information

Can be used in everyday conversation as in:

"Man I have this scap on my ass that just keeps..."
"Whoa, dude! TMI!"

Thanks, man.

[ReBusEniGma]

What a great thread. I have to tell on my wife too, I know she'll forgive me. She grew up in a european home with parents having thick english accents. A wonder that no one ever called her on it but, it was after we were married, she was talking about driving on the hive-way, her way of subconciously combining 'hi-vay' and highway. I was incredulous and I still raz her about it.

As for myself, I remember the moment when I heard somebody say the word, 'macabre' as I was reading it. I had never put the two together but imagined it spelled something like, 'macob'. And I remember thinking, 'why don't I ever hear anyone use this strange word, which I thought should be spelled, 'McAber'.

[Copper_moon]

I'm with you on the pronouncing read words differently. I remember my aunt laughing her butt off when I told her I was trying to be non-CHAL-ant about something. I had heard the correct french pronunciation but had never connected it to the written word. Some more that stumped me are; receipt, recipe, respite, misled, the Thames (rhymes with James) and the name Hermione.

I also read a book when I was little about a black horse named Satan. My little naive (another of THOSE words) mind never thought about the devil's moniker but instead mentally pronounced it Saton - rhymes with baton. I felt like a real dunce when I figured it out near the end of the book.

[Morbo]

I recently learned that the blue reflectors on the road indicate that there's a fire extinguisher on the sidewalk at that spot. Not sure if everyone else knew that or not.

(BTW, there was a recent thread (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=160688) that dealt exclusively with words you mispronounce while reading them).

[Scupper]

Originally posted by Dooku
I recently learned that the blue reflectors on the road indicate that there's a fire extinguisher on the sidewalk at that spot. Not sure if everyone else knew that or not.

I think you mean a fire hydrant. At least, I hope so, or I may be misinformed ...

[Earl of Sandwhich]

Until I was in my teens, I thought there was a drink called a Roman Coke (Sparklo' post reminds me). I never ordered one only because I didn't start drinking until I was almost 21, and by then had probably seen "Rum and Coke" written.

[Morbo]

Yes, Scupper, that's what I meant. :smack:

[digitalskeeza]

Originally posted by carlotta
Here is just one example: I had no idea until I actually bought a car (age 19) that cars needed to be "registered" or that you paid something called "personal property tax" on them.

LOL, I thought car insurance paid for ALL repairs on cars...Your car breaks down, no prob, you've got insurance!



Originally posted by Sparklo
I used to think there was a band named Haulin' Oats. Now I know better (http://www.hallandoates.com).

Good one! I thought the band The Eagles were ALSO pro-football players from Philadelphia til I was 13 or 14. I was like, wow, they're so multi-talented! Derrr!!

[senor]

That male squirrels have testicles.

[scr4]

For the longest time I din't know that you can write a check for more than the purchase price and get change. (My excuse is that my parents, being Japanese, know even less about using personal checks than I do.)

Also I was in college before I found out that The Sound of Music was based on a true story. I was even involved in the high school production of it (though only as an orchestra member) and didn't find out.

By the way, do women know about shrinkage? My girlfriend in college didn't know till she saw that Sienfeld episode.

[Banquet Bear]

Originally posted by MeanOldLady
What a WAG is. I'd seen in at least a jillion times on these boards and couldn't figure out what it was but was too embarrassed to ask. Everyone was using it except me. I figured by the context it was something along the lines of a stab in the dark at something, but I didn't know exactly what it stood for. Finally I threw my hands up and proclaimed, "to hell with this!!!" and looked it up in an acronym finder. No idea why it took me so long to do so.

:: banquetbear runs to an acronym finder , as he too is too embarrassed to ask ::

AHA!!!

Wild Assed Guess!!!

I'll take a WAG that that is correct?
;)

http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?String=exact&Acronym=WAG&Find=Find

[Another Primate]

Originally posted by urban1z
Does this fit here?

Until about 3 years ago, whenever I would open a bottle of soda and it would start fizzing, I ran to the sink, dripping soda all over the floor. One day when this happened, it occurred to me that all I needed to do was retighten the cap. Sure enough this worked perfectly. I'm not quite sure why it took me so long to figure it out. I'm 64 yo now.

Bob

I have the same problem. I think it's because we grew up, you opened pop bottles with a bottle opener, and they did not "retighten". And, later, when soda started being sold in cans (ick), you opened them with a beer opener, and they did not retighten. Can't do that with pop-tops, either.

So, given that it's seldom that an open bottle starts fizzing over, we revert to our young-lives, and don't do the practical thing!

[delphica]

Oh! Another one!

When I was little, I had a book about two sisters. The older sister often fondly thought of her little sister, saying "she's a nuisance, but I love her."

This always happened when it was pointed out that the little sister couldn't tie her own shoes, that she couldn't say some words correctly, that she didn't didn't know the way home from the candy store, etc.

Based on this, I believed the little sister was mentally handicapped. I didn't figure out until years later that the little sister couldn't tie her own shoes, etc, because she wasthree years old.

So I assumed "nuisance" meant mentally retarded. I was shocked, shocked I tell you, when I heard grown-ups sometimes use the word nuisance. In my mind, it was akin to calling someone a retard, which I knew was inappropriate.

I believed this to be true until I was in COLLEGE. Geez, talk about a nuisance!

[garius]

I'm ashamed to admit that this happened to me mere weeks ago.

I'm 22 and i don't cook - i don't mean that in a...

"rah! me man! make fire! hunt buffalo! you woman! you cook! clean house!"

...way. Its more that i was never taught how, have never been able to do it when people have tried to teach me (i'm crap at that whole multi-tasking thing it involves), and food really isn't that big a deal to me.

i eat because i need nourishment. Microwave meals do me fine - if i want something nice then i'll just get a takeaway. life is quicker and easier that way. plus when it comes to cooking my safety record isn't great - how i still have the tops of my fingers is a mystery to everyone who's ever seen me in the kitchen.

Anyway, my current GF has known me for years so knows what i'm like and since we started dating we've reached a happy compromise - sometimes she treats me by cooking for me, sometimes i treat her by taking her out etc. etc.

(for the record as a valentines thing i'm actually going to try and cook for her tonight. be afraid. be very afraid.)

So about two or three weeks ago, she emailed me just before i was going to head home and asked me if i fancied coming round - she'd cook but could i pick up a few items from Tescos on the way?

"no problem" I replied "Send me a shopping list". She did, i printed it off without looking at it and headed out.

So on the way, i call into the Tesco supermarket round the corner from her place, grab a basket, and start going through the list - milk, eggs, sugar, carton of orange juice, ribena, onions, a green pepper, an iceberg...

what???

what the frikkin' hell is an iceberg??

Now don't get me wrong, i'm not a thicky - i pretty much guessed that it had absolutely nothing to do with Leonardo di Caprio or bad Celine Dion songs straight away, but it still completely stymied me.

The worst part was that:

a) I couldn't ring her to ask what it was - i didn't have my mobile with me.

b) I KNEW that it was one of those things that as an ordinary well rounded adult i should know and that i was going to look a complete twat when i asked someone about it.

"Don't Panic" i thought. "It'll come to me whilst i find everything else."

But it didn't.

In the end i had to go up to some spotty little oik of a girl (i couldn't find any of the nice granny staff members) and ask.

I tried just saying "Have you got any icebergs?" (hoping she'd say something like - "yes they're in the freezer cabinet next to the chips" or "yes you'll find them in the bakery next to the baguettes")

but no.

she just looked at me quizzically and says "in the vegetable section."

which considering how big the store (and therefore its vegetable section) is, was fuck all help at all

so i had to bite the bullet:

"um thanks. erm... this is probably going to sound stupid - but what is an iceberg??"

"seriously?"

"yes"

"no way!"

"yes."

"Its lettuce! OH MY GOD! I can't believe you didn't know that!

"no"

"OH MY GOD! Thats so funny! sorry! i shouldn't laugh! But EVERYONE knows that!!! OH MY GOD! Thanks! you've made my night!"

the worst part was that by the time i'd gone and got one, decided to get a bottle of wine and worked out which one to get and gone to the "baskets only" check out...

...guess who was on the till.

:smack:

[Copper_moon]

Okay, picture it: Thanksgiving dinner with my husband, my parents, sister and brother-in-law. There's a lot of dysfunction there so we are valiantly trying to keep the conversation going and so I tell my husband to tell everyone that new joke he just told me. Blank stare. You know, honey - and I describe the joke in a little detail without actually giving it away. Still just a stare. And everyone else is staring at me too. "Yoo know - that one joke!" Finally my husband chokes out that he doesn't think that joke would be appropiate. Imagine my embarrassment when I realize that I had never really got the dirty joke and thus didn't realize that it was off color. Everyone else, however, had heard it and knew exactly which one it was. I was mortified. My sister still brings it up and almost pees her pants over it all these years later. My only consolation is that I have never again seen that "deer in the headlights" look on my husbands face. It was classic.

[rumraisin]

I used to read Enid Blyton books when I was around seven, but I didn't know they were by her. This was because instead of printing her name on the cover in nice legible text, they printed her signature. So for the longest time I thought her name was Guid Blyton, and I didn't find it odd at all.

[Ca3799]

Well, I thought male ducks fertilized eggs by sitting on them after they were layed by the female ducks. I always wondered why ducks were so agressive and fought so much. My friend, who clued me in on this mystery said "What didya think..the male sits on the egg or something?" Well, yeah, that 's what my dad told me when I was a kid. He doesn't lie...

[liirogue]

Garius, don't feel bad! When I was reading your list, I didn't know what an iceberg was either until the girl said "in the vegie section"! She should have put lettuce after that... I know a few guys that would have just loaded up the back of their pickups with bagged ice and declared it an iceberge :rolleyes:

[ivylass]

Can I just tell you, garius, that I really liked your story, with the English slang and all? Very nice.

My SIL, when she was younger, thought "bastard" was a compliment. She was coaxing her baby sister, about 7 years younger, across the floor by saying, "Come you, you little bastard...that's a good little bastard...look how fast you're going! Good bastard!" My MIL had to explain things to her.

[Ego_Mk2]

garius, what's ribena? (or a ribena?) ???

[Debaser]

I didn't know what "silver dollar pancakes" were until that guy got the question wrong on Who Wants to be a Millionaire and everyone in the country was talking about how dumb he was for not knowing it.

Also, I didn't know who OJ Simpson was until he killed somebody. *shrug*

[jellen92]

To my epiphany a couple of years ago, I just realized Paul Simon was the half of 'Simon and Garfunkel'. It's rather bad since I own many Paul Simon CD's....

[skaterboarder87]

Originally posted by Copper_moon
Okay, picture it: Thanksgiving dinner with my husband, my parents, sister and brother-in-law. There's a lot of dysfunction there so we are valiantly trying to keep the conversation going and so I tell my husband to tell everyone that new joke he just told me. Blank stare. You know, honey - and I describe the joke in a little detail without actually giving it away. Still just a stare. And everyone else is staring at me too. "Yoo know - that one joke!" Finally my husband chokes out that he doesn't think that joke would be appropiate. Imagine my embarrassment when I realize that I had never really got the dirty joke and thus didn't realize that it was off color. Everyone else, however, had heard it and knew exactly which one it was. I was mortified. My sister still brings it up and almost pees her pants over it all these years later. My only consolation is that I have never again seen that "deer in the headlights" look on my husbands face. It was classic.

Ooh, ooh, what was the joke?

[Mudling]

Okay this was a few years ago so I'm excused...

I thought it was just a coincidence the Letters to the Editor section of these 2 different magazines were always answered by someone called Ed.

He he he

[big alex]

Ego _Mk2
ribena is blackcurrent concentrate drink. That you have to dilute, like squash.
Ok, ok can't spell cordial

[NoClueBoy]

Originally posted by big alex

ribena is blackcurrent concentrate drink. That you have to dilute, like squash.


:confused: still. But, don't mind me. Go on.

[ioioio]

I used to be amazed that every city I drove through had a street called "Feeder Road". I was starting to think that Feeder Road was one long street that went clear across the country until someone explained it to me.

My college literature professor called Don Quixote "Don Kwee-sote".

[ivylass]

Originally posted by senor
That male squirrels have testicles.

I think all male mammals have testicles.

Some are more noticeable than others.

[Knowed Out]

This was back in the early 80's, when I went to NC State, and they had just won the NCAA championship in basketball. I was in pep band, and we got to play at the victory celebration in the brickyard when the team got back.

Coach Jim Valvano does his speech, and reads a letter to the crowd. It's a letter of congratulations. It goes on and on, and then Coach V says "signed David Thompson." The crowd goes wild.

I'm back there with the pep band, and I ask, "Who's David Thompson?" Everybody turned to look at me, either stunned or angry, and say with much chagrin, "You don't know who David Thompson is? How could you not know who David Thompson is?" I said "Really, I don't know who he is. Who's David Thompson?" This was met with more rolling of the eyes and further looks of disbelief. By this time I was getting pretty pissed and started cursing everybody for not telling me who David Thompson was.

It turns out that he was the player who pretty much singlehandedly won the NCAA championship for NC State back in '74. But I wasn't a native, so how the hell was I supposed to know???

[Misha77]

I didn't realize that the comic strip title Frank & Ernest was a pun until last year or so. (I'm 25.) I felt like the biggest twit for not seeing it sooner.

I also always thought that astigmatism was a stigmatism, and people would have a stigmatism sort of like they'd have a sty.

[Batsinma Belfry]

My stupidity is in 2 parts. When I was little, I thought the thing on the front of boys' underwear was a little pocket. After I got older I realised how stupid that was, I thought the fabric was doubled there, so it would soak up pee drips better. It wasn't until I was married that I found out it was an opening!

[BiblioCat]

Originally posted by scr4
By the way, do women know about shrinkage? My girlfriend in college didn't know till she saw that Sienfeld episode.


It shrinks? Really? I don't know how you guys walk around with those things.

[Max Carnage]

Originally posted by hillbilly queen
My stupidity is in 2 parts. When I was little, I thought the thing on the front of boys' underwear was a little pocket. After I got older I realised how stupid that was, I thought the fabric was doubled there, so it would soak up pee drips better. It wasn't until I was married that I found out it was an opening!

Did you think the King was walking around with his hand in his "pocket" to look casual?

[Crafter_Man]

It was in college when I learned Martin Luther and Martin Luther King were two different people. :rolleyes:

[Achernar]

This isn't exactly a pronunciation issue, but I thought "Kim Jong Il" was pronounced "Kim Jong the second". I also did not get the title Shanghai Noon until I saw it the second time.

[tesseract]

Originally posted by Bricker
I had a lot of those -- I was a voracious reader, but didn't get a chance to use these words in conversation.

I have a lot of them too. Telling each other the words we mispronounced in our heads for years has long been a source of amusement for our family. One day we realized, or at least hypothesized -- someone can correct me here if necessary -- that speakers of languages that are totally phonetic, such as Spanish, must miss out almost completely on this amusing phenomenon.


I do speak Spanish as a second language, and I don't remember ever coming across a word that I didn't know how to pronounce (course I guess I could be pronouncing them wrong and no one's told me...).

[jsc1953]

Originally posted by CrankyAsAnOldMan
I never knew until another Doper told me LAST YEAR that Passover and Easter aren't just coincidentally around the same time. I didn't know that the last supper was a passover seder!



Semi-related....I always knew that Passover and Easter were related. But I couldn't figure out until I was, oh, 40 years old...why the movie The Ten Commandments was always on TV around Easter time. I mean, it has a religious theme, and Easter is a religious holiday, but the connection is really tenuous....

Oh....Moses. Exodus. Passover. :smack:

[jsc1953]

Originally posted by Mith

I'm 25 and I'm still not sure... do birds have sex?

They reproduce "In the manner of all children of Iluvatar", as Tolkien would say. In other words, you betcha.

[Parallax]

Originally posted by lindsay.reid
I had a boyfriend in high school who was valedictorian of his class. Yet he (at age 18) didn't know the difference between a dress and a skirt. He thought "dress" just meant it was long and a "skirt" referred to everything above the knee.

When I first read this I must admit I was confused - I figured it worked the same way. After reading this to my wife I realized what the difference was. :smack:

[LindyHopper]

Hey, Copper_moon, this isn't by any chance the "it looks like you blew a seal" joke, is it? Involving a female penguin? I only ask because I have a (female) friend who told this joke in very mixed company, not understanding it.

So, is that the one?

[aaaaaarrgg]

oi this is embarassing...

well i was down in the dc area with my mom and a friend, collegehunting. we visited a friend of my mother's in virginia while we were there and as we were driving to her house the three of us were talking about this friend and her family. my mom said that the woman's daughter goes to james madison university and plays water polo. and then we got into a discussion about water polo and which schools we knew had water polo teams...when someone mentioned columbia it got me thinking, so i said 'i wonder where they keep the horses.'

the two of them erupted in laughter. apparantly it was common knowledge that there are no horses in water polo. you see, whenever i had asked what water polo was exactly, i would be told 'oh it's just like polo, only in water'. and i know that horses can swim--i read 'misty of chincoteague', i know the deal!

needless to say, i heard about that one for a while. ;)

[aaaaaarrgg]

by the by......what does IIRC mean?

[JohnT]

If I Recall Correctly.

[okielady]

When I was a freshman in high school I started dating a senior on the football team. Shortly after we started dating, I asked him what position he played. He replied, "Deep snatch." Now being naive to football positions at the time, as well as slang terms for body parts, I took him for his word.

Not long thereafter, my parents wanted to know what position my boyfriend played on the football team. LIKE YOU CAN'T SEE THIS ONE COMING! LOL
So I told them. Oh yeah, THAT went over well. I think it was a couple of years before I figured it out.

[Skeezix]

Apparently, today (well, yesterday now, by my watch) a bunch of folks all over the world decided to wave signs and say things, and stand around a lot in an effort to... well, they all obviously thought they were accomplishing something, at any rate.

Me? First I heard of it was on the boards, about two hours ago.

[Evil Captor]

My wife would occasionally mention an obscure writer called "Nitizich." I thought nothing of it until one day we were reading something and I said something to the effect of, "That Nietzsche, what a card!" and she said, "Oh, you mean 'Nitizich.'

Oh, I had fun with her on that one.

But then, she'd always had fun that I always pronounced "Armageddon" as if it were a kind of dinosaur: "Ar-meg-ga-don."

[ant22783]

Until I was about 35 and had seen the movie every year for thirty years I didn't realize that Dorothy dreamed the whole trip to Oz.
My kids absolutely forbid me to speak when they're friends are in the house.until I was (http://)

[grettle]

"until I was. . . "

Page not displayed

to be continued. . . ?!

[lorene]

Oh, so many.

Of course, there are always funny ones from childhood, as when I thought 'pregnant' was the opposite of 'ignorant'.

I just found out recently that there is a little holder for the cover to my gas tank right on the inside of that little door on the car---how convenient!

I also did not know until about 5 years ago that homeowners had to purchase insurance.

I'm sure I'll think of more.

[as_u_wish]

I think I'll tell on a couple of friends to help me work up to my own DUH.

I had friends in college who had "moments of realization" about spatula and epitome, similar to those mentioned above.

My boyfriend in college was astounded to find out how girls "got all that hair through the rubberband"--he'd never seen a girl put her hair in a ponytail before.

Ok, now me...

To my embarrassment, I didn't connect the phrases "brown nose" and "kissing ass" until well into my 40s. I knew that they both meant obsequious behavior and were somewhat synonymous. I just didn't connect them...

But even worse, I was 50 when I realized the ABC song, Baa Baa Blacksheep and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star have the same tune. I'm still in denial about this.

[Lok]

Originally posted by carlotta
Here is just one example: I had no idea until I actually bought a car (age 19) that cars needed to be "registered" or that you paid something called "personal property tax" on them. You only have to pay property tax on cars in certain states. In Ohio you only pay about $30 a year for plates, while in Indiana it is a percentage of the cost of the car. Which is why you can find a large number of cars in Indiana as much as 60 miles from Ohio that have Ohio plates.

Most of mine are the wrong pronunciation type. Naive being knave for several years.

[ianzin]

This is a great thread. I loved the Jerry Lewis / Jerry Lee Lewis one, and the one about Letters to the Editor pages all having some guy called 'Ed' working on them. Priceless!

I can relate to the Martin Luther / Martin Luther King confusion. It's not that I ever thought they were the same, but in history class it took me a long while to remember which was was.

My own contributions could fill a book. When I first owned my own car, I had no idea I had to put some oil into it from time to time. This is very embarassing for a man to admit.

My special genius is not so much mis-pronouncing words in my mind as mis-parsing phrases. I'm very good at not working out where the breaks or 'spaces' come in a phrase.

There's an old Margaret Rutherford 'Miss Marple' movie set on board a ship called 'Murder Ahoy'. The first few times I heard about this film I just assumed it was called 'Murderer Hoy', as in some guy called Hoy who hacked people. Why did I think that, instead of the much more likely 'Murder Ahoy'? I have no explanation. It's just a quirk in my head.

Likewise, the famous Stranglers track 'Golden Brown' refers to 'through my manchirons'. I honestly wondered what 'manchirons' were, until a friend said 'through my mind she runs'.

I was in my early teens when I first heard of 'Simon & Garfunkel', but I didn't realise it was a double act. I just naturally assumed there was a recording artist with the unusual first name 'Simenon', as in Simenon Garfunkel. (I'm not making these up.)

[AHunter3]

Well, there was the argument I had with my sister about 5 years ago about truffles. She, silly fool, kept insisting that the expensive chocolates were NOT made from the expensive mushrooms.

Oh. :o


Then, back in the early 90s, when Apple was on the verge of releasing the first "Power Mac" machines based on the PowerPC chip instead of the Motorola 680x0-series chips used up until that time, I kept reading issued of Info-Mac Digest and running across references to "68K" versions of software or "68K" machines, and I kept wondering -- and eventually posted the question -- "What does 68K refer to? I can tell from context that you are referring to the older architecture machines that use the 68000-series processors, but what about them has, or is, 68 kilobytes or 68 kilo-whatever? I don't get it..."

:smack:

[monica]

Originally posted by Sparklo
I used to think there was a band named Haulin' Oats. Now I know better.
I thought my mother was getting my father a CD by Holland Oats. :rolleyes:

[Lobsang]

I didn't know I had a crumb on my face until someone told me.

[Zsofia]

A friend of mine's car (well, really a friend of a friend's) broke down a couple years ago. She called my close friend from the side of the road. Hearing her describe it, it sounded like a dead battery or something else electrical, I asked "Did you try to jump it?" I get a pause, then gales of laughter. "She asked if you have to open the lid to do that, because she dosen't know how."

And, um, as a child I thought Walter Cronkite and Winston Churchill were the same person.

[lamafish]

assuming that BTW does mean By The Way then about ten minutes ago. If not...:confused:

[Helena]

It wasn't until I was well into my twenties that I learned that "buttercup" is not another word for daffodil. Hey, it makes sense, right? I mean, they're yellow, and they have that cup-shaped thing...

[CadburyAngel]

My mom played a lot of older music when I was growing up, so I was at least in fifth or sixth grade before I completely grasped that The Doors, The Beatles, Etta James, and Bing Crosby were not all contemporaries and still producing hits.

[Max Carnage]

Originally posted by Helena
It wasn't until I was well into my twenties that I learned that "buttercup" is not another word for daffodil. Hey, it makes sense, right? I mean, they're yellow, and they have that cup-shaped thing...

They aren't the same thing? :smack:

[generica]

originally posted by lanaif
I used to be amazed that every city I drove through had a street called "Feeder Road". I was starting to think that Feeder Road was one long street that went clear across the country until someone explained it to me.


Hahaha - I thought much the same thing about "Business Frontage Road".

In my defense, when I was a kid we lived in a rural community so there was only one sign on the highway that said "frontage road" so I thought it was just that one road. Later on I noticed that just about all the towns on the highway had a road called "business frontage road" but I didn't really put it together until I was about 25.

[Achernar]

I always wondered why so many towns thought Industrial Park was a good name for a public park. ;)

[silkstar]

I recently found out Mick Jagger is bi-sexual.

[Laughing Lagomorph]

I don't know what silver dollar pancakes are. And I never heard of David Thompson, although I grant I might have if I went to NC State.

[Laughing Lagomorph]

Originally posted by big alex
Ego _Mk2
ribena is blackcurrent concentrate drink. That you have to dilute, like squash.
Ok, ok can't spell cordial

Like squash? Zuchinni? Acorn? Butternut?

[Elret]

Oh, I contain so much ignorance I don't even know where to start.

Until I was 23, I thought "awry" was pronounced "aw-ree".

And add me into the Enid/Guid Blyton club.

As far as misheard lyrics go, I have experienced the embarassment of discovering the following aren't true:
Pretty Ness is not selling puppies from a tray, rather "Pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray".
and
Susan is not in fact enjoying a lovely time in the sun. It's "Seasons in the Sun"

But before I start feeling too dumb, allow me to pick on my masters degree holding boyfriend. The first time we cooked a Thanksgiving dinner together, he asked me to hand him the "awl". I looked around for a hooked knitting implement before realizing he wanted a rubber headed basting tool. He had seen a picture of an awl on Classic Concentration, and it looked like the thangy (which may or may not be called a baster?) used to suck up juices and spit them back down on meat.

[pervert]

OK, for the way back machine I remember a conversation with my mother when I was under 6. I couldn't understand how everyone knew which side of the road to drive on. She kept trying to explain to me that it was simple, "you just drive on the right side of the road."

"Yea, but how do you know which side is the right side?"

Of course this led to a discussion of right hand and left hand. But it did NOT clear up my confusion. I looked down the road we were travelling on and noticed (using my newly aquired knowledge of right and left) that there was indeed a line down the middle of the road one side on the right the other on the left. And it was obvious that we were on the right hand side while everyon else was on the left. However, I asked how everyone else would know to switch sides when we returned down the same road.

I still have trouble with right and left, counter and clockwise, and even up and down sometimes :confused:

More recently I just realized the woman's shirts are buttoned fromt he other side than men's.

[Mothchunks]

that Lincoln didn't free the slaves (Emancipation Proclamation) until well into the Civil War, which was fought over states rights, not the issue of slavery.

[Quonk]

Until I was about 12, I thought Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson were the same person. I would use their names interchangeably.

When I was 14, I told a very racist joke to a group of friends--I mean very racist--because I didn't quite understand the punchine. I was met with gasps and a slap to the face. Oops.

I had a friend who thought the price of a stamp was the "state number". That was a classic.

[Standup Karmic]

I realized just a few days ago that, in the theme of The Beverly Hillbillies, when they talk about "up from the ground came a bubblin' crude"...that a few words later, they refer to "Texas tea", not "Texas T".

I always thought they just meant the letter 'T'. Always wondered why they called it a letter.

[Don Roberto]

Originally posted by Laughing Lagomorph
Originally posted by big alex
Ego _Mk2
ribena is blackcurrent concentrate drink. That you have to dilute, like squash.
Ok, ok can't spell cordial

Like squash? Zuchinni? Acorn? Butternut?

Squash=Cordial.

This is a "drink" which is popular in Britain. Basically, in the supermarket, you buy a bottle of the syrupy stuff and dilute it with water to get a Kool-Aid like concoction, only much tastier. Ribena is a blackcurrant flavored brand name of squash.

As for my "idiot moment", it involved this very thing--then the same thing happened to my best friend! I thought "Apple Blackcurrant" sounded like a pretty good drink. Brought the stuff home, it tasted like crap. Told my friend not to buy it. Two days later I noticed, in very tiny print, the "dilute with 4 parts water" direction. Follwing the directions, it tasted great! Told my friend all about it. He liked it. Two weeks later, we're hanging out, and he tells me bought this stuff that tastes like crap. It's the EXACT SAME BOTTLE! He'd previously ridiculed me for not reading the directions, then he made the same mistake!

[big alex]

Well after that it seems that I can spell cordial after all.
Could have stopped a lot of confusion!

[Annie-Xmas]

When I was a child and we had spaghetti for dinner, my mother would serve it with "shaker cheese." I honestly thought that was the name for it.

I was an adult before I heard the word "Parmesan." And I still think of it as "shaker cheese."

[ivylass]

I used to confuse Bill Cosby with Bing Crosby.

[lovelyluka]

Ahhh...thank you for the acronym finder. I can read the boards much better now. :D Does it count that I didn't know there was such thing as an acronym finder?

Here's a good one...

My boyfriend is, well, "country", and sometimes we pronounce words differently. It did seem to me, though, that he was saying "every since" instead of "ever since". We had been dating for well over a year before I called him on it, and he had no idea he was saying it incorrectly. To him, his way made more sense....like, all the sinces that between now and that event. Or something.

I have many myself, but one that comes to mind that hasn't been mentioned is that I am usually unaware when a movie has been remade. For instance, "Ocean's Eleven" was coming on TV while I was visiting my mom, and I got all excited and told her how clever it was. After we watched it, I asked if she shared my enthusiasm for it. She then informed me that it was just like the original. Original? Wha...? Same goes for the song "Lady Marmalade". And others....

Oh yes, and http://www.kissthisguy.com has been very useful in solving many of my song-lyric woes.

[ArrMatey!]

Distinct religious confusion- When I was a kid, until about age 6, I thought:

Lutherans worshipped Lex Luthor. I couldn't figure out why you'd wanna worship the bad guy...

There was a religious school near mine named 'Visitation' (short for something, I'm sure). Due to the name, I figured the students there visited other schools instead of being taught there.

[voguevixen]

I just yesterday was told (by a complete stranger, no less) that Kansas City, MO and Kansas City, Kansas were the same city divided by a state line. But to be fair, he didn't know that all Hallmark Cards come from Kansas City; so we're even. (He also didn't know there was a "Nurse's Day" or that you could buy a card for it, but then remarked "I'm sure if someone was planning to commit suicide Hallmark has a Good Luck on your Suicide card for it.")

[bup]

...that my girlfriend was sleeping with the world.

When I worked for a travel company, my boss asked me where Texarkana was.

[mblackwell]

When I was a kid I somehow got the idea that Gorbachev was the governor of Ohio.

[MeanOldLady]

I still don't know how to do a spiler. :(

[MeanOldLady]

*light bulb* Wait a second. Let me try something. ...
la la la
(previews while crossing fingers)

YESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

[DKW]

I saw the Fist of the North Star movie hit Blockbuster video and watched the entire Kimagure Orange Road and Oh My Goddess OAV series without ever realizing that all three were based on much longer-running manga series. (And had undergone more changes than The Simpsons.) Oh yeah, I watched a gazillion episodes of Star Blazers, Voltron, Robotech, Tranzor Z, etc., and I never saw anything at all unusual about the artwork or animation.

I've seen every episode of The Powerpuff Girls, and until I read about it on a message board, it never once occurred to me that anyone could ever mistake it for anime.

It was more than a year after Hank Williams Jr. first appeared on Monday Night Football that I learned that he's one of the most hated country music performers ever. (I also had no idea that he butchered one of his own songs to get that little jingle.)

When Pump It Up first showed up in the arcades, it struck me as a that the Dance Dance Revolution community would absolutely love. I mean, if you like dance games, having another dance game is good, right? And the pad's different, so that's even more variety, which is good, right? And the music's different, which is even better, right?

Oh yeah...I was well over 18 before I knew, point-blank, 100%, that pro wrestling isn't real.

Yeah, I'm pathetic in some ways...

[DKW]

Can't believe I missed this...

When someone named Elian Gonzales washed up on the Florida coastline, I...honest to god...had no idea what the hell the big controvery was. I mean, he's a lonely boy miles from his homeland, and his daddy misses him...for crying out loud, send him home! And since when do we care about some little foreign boy, anyway?
:rolleyes: :p

[moi]

I didn't make the connection that "Weird Earl=Weird URL" until my husband said it out loud...a good 300 posts after I started hangin' around these parts.

:rolleyes:

[Ca3799]

I though "Ibid" was some fabulous book that had everything I needed to know in it.

[Ferret Herder]

Originally posted by Max Carnage
Originally posted by Helena
It wasn't until I was well into my twenties that I learned that "buttercup" is not another word for daffodil. Hey, it makes sense, right? I mean, they're yellow, and they have that cup-shaped thing...
They aren't the same thing? :smack:

Nope - though I grew up around both, so that probably helps. Daffodils are long-stemmed, and shaped kind of like a lily - long, cupped flower, pretty large in size. One flower per stem/bulb pretty much. Buttercups grow very close to the ground, with a cluster of round largish leaves. They have thin short stems, and look much like how little kids would draw short-petaled flowers - stubby round petals and a bit of yellow fuzz in the middle. You'll find several flowers on each plant.

[noddygrrl]

I was about 22 when I learned that "aria" doesn't rhyme with Mariah.

It took ages before I figured out what FOAK meant. Drove me absolutely bonkers.

I used to think there was an obscure local band called "TBA" that opened up for a lot of bigger names when they came to town.

Perhaps most embarrassingly, I wasn't quite sure which part(s) "down there" constituted the labia until a fair while after I lost my virginity.

[garius]

sorry about the "Ribena" thing guys.

Although trust me - you'd lovee it :)

Originally posted by ivylass
Can I just tell you, garius, that I really liked your story, with the English slang and all? Very nice.

Awwww Thanks. I'm pretty mild accent/slang-wise in comparison to many out there though.

Be warned, however, the more legless i get the more dick van dyke i become. :rolleyes:

[bup]

Originally posted by moi
I didn't make the connection that "Weird Earl=Weird URL" until my husband said it out loud...a good 300 posts after I started hangin' around these parts.
:o Thanks for cluing me in...

[Yorikke]

Originally posted by MeanOldLady
*light bulb* Wait a second. Let me try something. ...
la la la
(previews while crossing fingers)

YESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

Does this work?

damn hell ass kings

Yay!!!

hrh

[The Devil's Grandmother]

Iceberg <snicker> that’s a good one, garius. One story from when I worked in a grocery store, a lost man with a list needed “egg noodles”. Thank goodness his wife had the sense to draw a picture of a wide, wavy noodle on the list or I don’t think we ever would have found them.
I managed to embarrass myself in a college literature class by mispronouncing Salome (girl who danced for Herod) as Sal-O-meh.
Originally posted by big alex
ribena is blackcurrent concentrate drink. That you have to dilute, like squash.
Ok, ok can't spell cordial
About two years ago I found out that Aussies and/or Brits use the term “Cordials” as a generic term for non-alcoholic concentrates you dilute with water to make drinks. Here in A-merry-kay, “Cordials” are either spiced/fruited wines or hard alcohol. A whole lot of on-line conversations with Aussies suddenly became clear.

[bluemoonz]

most of the things on this page i never knew with the exception the few *cough* squirrels with testicles *cough* obvious ones

[Evil Captor]

My first year of going to school, one of the other, older kids suggested I go up to all the girls on the school bus and ask them, "Can I suck your tits?" I had no idea what tits were, but it sounded like fun, and I did it, and sure enough there was much screaming and shouting and attempts to hit me. But the BIGGEST reaction was the one I got from my mother when I got home and excitedly told her about the great game I had played on the bus.:eek:

[lightingtool]

This one is fairly terrible...

I read a lot of Twain when I was too young to really know what was going on. I grew up in rural CT, which is VERY white (can you see where this is going?). One day, my Mom and I went to the big city. Walking down the sidewalk, I yelled out, "Look Mom, a ni**er!!!" I had no idea it was a bad word, and had never heard it said before, but if I could read it, I could say it, right? WRONG! The most embarrasing moment of my mother's life.

Told you it was terrible.

[levdrakon]

I still don't know what OEM means.

I always thought WAG was wager a guess & didn't like it when people would say " this is a WAG" instead of "I'd WAG that..."

Took an embarrassingly long time before I realized Dubya stood for "W" and wasn't pronounced Doobya. I just figured it was a goofy nickname.

When I was a kid my mom told me all about how painful labor pains & childbirth can be. For the longest time I was seriously dreading my eventual pregnancy & labor. I mean seriously. Imagine my relief when I found out men don't get pregnant!

This was TMI probably for me at a young age, but my mom clued me in about homosexuality. I asked what the guys do. She said something to the effect that "they um, swallow each other's penises." I was absolutely shocked, disgusted, horrified. How could someone be so sick as to derive any pleasure from biting off another man's penis & swallowing it???? Or letting someone bite their penis off? I mean geez, you could only do it one time & then you'd have no penis! What a relief when I found out she was talking about blow jobs. Thanks for psychologically scarring me Mom!

Lessee, what else? I have an intelligent banker friend who was pretty embarrassed to find out a fossil wasn't just a brand of watch. Gotta love dem California public edjamuhcations.

[Yorikke]

I always thought that the word "penalize" had something to do with penis, until I was about 12 or 13...

hrh

[CadburyAngel]

Oh, yeah! Just remembered. When I was in sixth grade, one day everybody started calling each other lesbians. I thought it was a type of alien from Star Trek or something. Ya know, Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, Lesbians.

[ECJones29]

Shelley Winters had to have the concept of time zones explained to her by Johnny Carson one night on the "Tonight Show" many years ago. It was a complete revelation to her.

I also worked with a real blowhard once who was aware of way more words than he knew how to use correctly. For example, he thought that "common" and "carnal" were synonyms, and was always finishing his stories with, "well that's just carnal knowledge..."

Chevy Chase used to open "Weekend Update" at the desk on the phone to his girlfriend. One night he said into the phone, "no, no, honey, you don't actually blow on it; that's just an expression. Whoops. Gotta go. Here now the news."

[DeVena]

I was typically very gullible and very impressionable as a kid.

When traveling, my dad would tell us to look for short-legged cows. Cows with the legs on the right side of their bodies would be longer than the legs on the left side. So they could walk on hillsides and not tip over. Oh and they had to walk backward at night to get back to the barn.

And eating raw potatoes will give you worms. (so don't sneek a bite before they're boiled!)

But weirdest... When I was about 9, my mom was taking about an unmarried aunt who got pregnant. She was mad "Flo knew better! She knows all it takes to get pregnant is to spread your legs around a man." Yep. I was terrified if I didn't keep my ankles crossed every time I sat down, that some unscrupulous man would impregate me.

I was such a confused child...

[Evil Captor]

Originally posted by DeVena
But weirdest... When I was about 9, my mom was taking about an unmarried aunt who got pregnant. She was mad "Flo knew better! She knows all it takes to get pregnant is to spread your legs around a man." Yep. I was terrified if I didn't keep my ankles crossed every time I sat down, that some unscrupulous man would impregate me.

Then it's just as well you never saw any Japanese tentacle hentai ...

[Cardinal]

I didn't make the connection that "Weird Earl=Weird URL" I just got this, as I've always said, "yourl", or U-R-L. Does anyone say it, "Earl"?

[Maxxxie]

Originally posted by Cardinal
I just got this, as I've always said, "yourl", or U-R-L. Does anyone say it, "Earl"?

You mean it's NOT "Earl"??? All this time I've been wondering who the hell Earl is! :smack:


Ok, here's one that's terrifically embarassing. For me, at least.

You know the word "misled", right? It's pronounced "miss led". Well... up until I was about 20 - every time I saw it written down, I read it as "my-zuhld"... and totally thought it was some strange word I didn't know the meaning of. One day I thought to myself.. godammit, I'm gonna find out what the hell this "my-zuhld" word means. So I looked it up in a dictionary.

Oops. :rolleyes: :smack:


Max :D

[IrishRideGirl]

Just an FYI: Ribena (undiluted) is also used as blood in the movies and on tv.

Up until I was almost 17, I though what everyone meant when they used the term "giving head" was that you took a penis and rubbed it on or against your head.

My high school boyfriend is still probably telling that story, lol.

[Psycho Pirate]

For the longest time (well into my twenties) I thought that the "To Be Announced" listing in the TV Guide was the name of a television show. I had convinced myself that it was either some boring news show or some Christian prophecy show a la "Jack Van Impe".

I also stink at deciphering song lyrics. Examples? Sure.

Theme from the Jeffersons.

"Now we're up in the big leagues. Kiss my burnin' fat."

And that old Dusty Springfield chestnut, "You don't have to say you love me":

"You don't have to say you love me just because I asked..."

Psycho Pirate :) :(

[Sunspace]

OEM stands for 'Original Equipment Manufacturer'. When Company A buys Company B's pretty-much-finished-but-unbranded product and further customizes it then puts the Company-A name on it, Company A is said to be buying an OEM version of Company B's product.

[Treebeard]

I was well into adulthood before I finally realized that people lie.

[Lobelia Overhill]

I don't know how old I was before I found out how boys can pee standing up while girls have to sit down ...

[Shirley Ujest]

Jesus was celebrating seder?

I didn't know that.

Oy Vey............

Next thing you will shock me with is that he was jewish.

No, really, I didn't know that until my twenties. Mind you , I go into a coma during God-talk stuff.)

I am alot like DeVena as a child. Very impressionable and trusting. It's so embarrassing.

It wasn't until last year until i understood the concept of Thirds and in " One third of smokers die horrible deaths".... Mr. Ujest had to drawn it on a piece of paper for me.

[Shirley Ujest]

Omnipotent is not pronounced omni-poe-tent

as I found out once in a public fashion.




(it's om-nip-eh-tent )

[Trigonal Planar]

<b>Psycho Pirate<b>: Hahaha, I thought the exact same thing. I'm 20 now and literally up to just a year or so ago I thought "To Be Announced" was some Christian prophecy show!! :D:smack:

When I was really young, I thought summer came about as a result of everyone using their driers and warming up the weather...

For the longest time I didn't know the bench-like seating in restaurants were called "booths".

When I was a kid I never realised "N/A" stood for "Not Applicable". I always thought it stood for "na-uh" like how a little kid says "no"....."nah-uh".

[Grasshopper]

Don't ask me why, but I used to think that grinning meant a sort of coughing sound you make in your throat. I wondered why everyone in books lived in a strange world where when something pleased them, they coughed.

[Trigonal Planar]

Oh and I have some more stories.

I had one friend who didn't know funnels were called funnels...she didn't know they even had a name. I had another friend who didn't know pylons were called pylons...he thought they were called "orange cones" :)

[darksight]

Originally posted by okielady
When I was a freshman in high school I started dating a senior on the football team. Shortly after we started dating, I asked him what position he played. He replied, "Deep snatch." Now being naive to football positions at the time, as well as slang terms for body parts, I took him for his word.

Not long thereafter, my parents wanted to know what position my boyfriend played on the football team. LIKE YOU CAN'T SEE THIS ONE COMING! LOL
So I told them. Oh yeah, THAT went over well. I think it was a couple of years before I figured it out.


I just laughed for about five mins. at this one ~:p

[SnugTheJoiner]

From my teens until my mid-thirties I thought that Scott Joplin had written a piece of music called "The Make-Believe Rag."

Even though I was mistaken, I still think it's a great name.

[hyperjes]

Up until about two years ago, I thought that Jesus was the baby found floating down a river in a basket. (d_redguy has since informed me that THAT was Moses.)

I also kept getting Jonah and Gepetto confused. (What, with the whale and all.)

I suppose I can't really be blamed, having had no religious upbringing.As evidenced here. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=163509&perpage=50&pagenumber=2)

I also thought that the song that goes "Dirty Deeds- Done Dirt Cheap" went "Dirty Sheets and the Thunder Chief." until I was around 13. I could never understand why someone would write a song about an Indian guy's bed clothes.:smack:

[d_redguy]

Oh my God. Consider me another *whoosh* on the "Weird Earl's" thing.

:smack: :wally

[Tristan]

I failed to get the pun in:

Sue Dhunym- speak it outloud, and think of "fake name".

It took me a few times to get Diagon Alley. You know, that road that kinda goes crossways?

And so many numerous others.

It also took me a bit to get that segue wasn't pronounced "Seg-U" I had no idea what it was, until I was speaking and used the word..... and spelled it in my head, and felt stupid.

I didn't figure out the reason for re-inforced crotches in panties until I was married.

[moi]

Yay! I wasn't completely alone in not "getting" Weird Earl. I'd like to engage in a collective swatting with my confused bretheren, Cardinal, Maxxxie and d_redguy. :smack:



I didn't just come back to celebrate, but also because I thought of a rather strange one. I sometimes get a dry tickle inside my neck, way up and to the back. For reasons to confusing to explain, I call this "brain itch." When my brain, ahem, itches, I make this odd rub in my throat, and it makes this horrific noise.

Until I got married, I thought the noise could only be heard in my head...that it wasn't audible. And then one day my husband looked at me and said, "What are you doing?" I proceeded to turn red with embarrassment...to think of all the times I didn't know people could hear! :o

[akennett]

Originally posted by Soup_du_jour
Perhaps I've said this before somewhere else.

I just learned about a year ago that Elton John is gay. I guess it was just one of those things that everyone assumes everyone else knows, but nobody tells anyone else.

Brings new meaning to the song "Don't let your son[sic] go down on me" doesn't it...

[Tigers2B1]

I was 16 before I found out that women didn't give birth via the anal canal. I believed this for so long because my Puritan father explained it to me that way.

[Johanna]

Originally posted by as_u_wish
But even worse, I was 50 when I realized the ABC song, Baa Baa Blacksheep and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star have the same tune. I'm still in denial about this. Hey, don't leave out "Ah! vous dirais-je, maman". :D

[Agrippina]

Until only a year or two ago, I used to think that hamburger came with Hamburger Helper. It never occured to me that one had to buy the hamburger seperately, 'cause it would rot in the box.

[Agrippina]

Originally posted by CadburyAngel
My mom played a lot of older music when I was growing up, so I was at least in fifth or sixth grade before I completely grasped that The Doors, The Beatles, Etta James, and Bing Crosby were not all contemporaries and still producing hits.

When I was younger we watched a lot of reruns. I was astonished to learn that M*A*S*H ended the year I was born. I had thought they kept on making new episodes in the 80s, just like The Bob Newhart Show and Taxi.

[Kubla Khan]

When I was in 11th grade we spent 2 weeks going over Homer's Odyssey. For the entire time, our English teacher pronounced Penelope as "PEE-neh-loap".

And, sadly, nobody in our class, including myself, was certain enough about the correct pronunciation to try and correct her.

[jono]

Originally posted by Morkfromork
I realized just a few days ago that, in the theme of The Beverly Hillbillies, when they talk about "up from the ground came a bubblin' crude"...that a few words later, they refer to "Texas tea", not "Texas T".

I always thought they just meant the letter 'T'. Always wondered why they called it a letter.


thats nothing, until a few years ago i thought the term was "Texas Cheese"
i never questioned the strangeness of this term but simply took it for granted

[Cyberhwk]

Never realized that July and August both had 31 days. I just thought they alternated every single month.

[SC_Wolf]

Originally posted by Cyberhwk
Never realized that July and August both had 31 days. I just thought they alternated every single month.

This is one you can blame on a Roman Emperor or two.

[Orange Skinner]

I used to think raped was 'raked.' When I heard about a girl that was brutally raked and murdered, I thought it meant she had been swooshed about with a rake into a pile of leaves until she was dead. I distinctly remember saying to my mother: "can you imagine how much that would hurt? Getting raked?" and shuddering.

Last Sunday, a friend of mine had one of the best misconceptions I've heard of in a while. Mudshark, myself and this aformentioned mutual friend of ours were out together, and he and I started talking about euphemisms for breasts. I said I liked them called "tits" because "boob" sounded moronic. At any rate, Stephanie, our friend, said, "ah, but tit just refers to a specific part of the breast...boob...whatever." Mudshark and I exchanged a look, not really getting it. He said something to the effect of, "Uh...no, it doesn't. The term 'tit' encompasses the whole thing, there, Steph."

Apparantly, she'd thought 'tit' was a synonym for 'nipple.' Terrifying to think that she actually has two of them and can't even call them by name.

Another one of my friends used to think the President literally had little men in a cabinent.

[eenerms]

Originally posted by dwc1970
My father related a funny little story from his college days. When he was getting registered for his classes everyone kept telling him to go see Dean Smith, then Dean Jones, then Dean Brown, etc. (names made up) My dad thought to himself, "wow, there sure are a lot of people named Dean around here." He had no idea that a dean was a title!


Similar story: For the most part last names in Saudi Arabia are Al 'Something' ie. Al Khoaghi, Al Saud etc. An Expat woman riding in a car through town, looks out the window and says. "There sure a lot of Al's living here" she was reading the names of the stores!

[auntnut]

Oh boy...........this is gonna hurt...........
First of all, I have to tell you that I grew up in Las Vegas Nevada, where there are no oceans, so, I am not REALLY REALLY STUPID, just a little stupid.
In 1985, at the age of 27, I moved to Washington State, by the ocean. My husband loved to fish off of the pier, and he taught me
"crabbing" (catching crabs at the bottom of the ocean with a crab trap, attatched to a rope, which is tied to the pier)
We had been out for several hours, and the tide was coming in. I turned to my husband and said "shouln't we let out more rope?"
He looked at me funny and asked "Why?" I said "Because the tide is coming in!!" He started laughing like I had told a great joke, and I was getting mad..............CAUSE THE TIDE WAS COMING IN FAST!!! DONT WE HAVE TO HURRY AND LET OUT MORE ROPE????
He realized I was totally serious, which made him laugh even harder, which made him a big jerk in my book.
It took him about 20 minutes to quit laughing, and another 20 minutes to explain that when the crab trap is on the bottom, and the tide comes in, the water moves, the ocean floor doesn't.:smack:
( I won't even get into the story about asking him if cow milk was the pee from a cow)

[Sunspace]

Another one. I thought that a "thong" was a piece of swimwear, not underwear. Makes sense... it's an available product on CafePress, which has no other underwear; I'd seen news reports of teens being disciplined because of wearing visible thongs to school; and I haven't been to a beach much in years due to the old body-shame thing, plus it's winter here, so I really don't know what's fashionable on the women these days; and I don't know anyone who would probably wear one anyway...

I thought this until approximately 9:45 last night. What's more, my friend Lunjo tells me that the particular thong (http://www.cafeshops.com/cp/prod.aspx?p=eotoronto.4860815) sold through CafePress can be worn by either sex! Is this true?

[Chum]

Originally posted by hyperjes
I also thought that the song that goes "Dirty Deeds- Done Dirt Cheap" went "Dirty Sheets and the Thunder Chief." until I was around 13. I could never understand why someone would write a song about an Indian guy's bed clothes.:smack:
I thought it was "Dirty Deeds and the Dunder Chief." Makes a lot of sense, I know.

I've always pronounced "wolves" with the "l" sound. My boyfriend likes to tease me about it. But he says "Taco Bell" with the emphasis on "taco." Neither of us has modified our pronunciation after being enlightened by the other.

[DanBlather]

Originally posted by Achernar
This isn't exactly a pronunciation issue, but I thought "Kim Jong Il" was pronounced "Kim Jong the second". I also did not get the title Shanghai Noon until I saw it the second time. I just got it now:smack:

[Innanna]

Originally posted by Chum
I've always pronounced "wolves" with the "l" sound. My boyfriend likes to tease me about it. But he says "Taco Bell" with the emphasis on "taco." Neither of us has modified our pronunciation after being enlightened by the other.

Here in the wilds of Ohio, we do pronounce the "l" in wolves. Not that we are at the apex of pronunciation--after all, we do have the town of Vie-enna (spelled the same as the rather famous European capital, but said as above)--but we're pretty standard for the US.

Where is your boyfriend from? Could it be a regional thing with him?

[Avarie537]

When I was a kid, I thought that a movie soundtrack was ALL of the sound from a movie - NOT just the music. I could NOT figure out why you'd want to just LISTEN to a movie.

Anybody remember the old "Hooks" drugstores? We had one near our house with the green sign, "Hooks" in cursive. I was so confused why my parents called it "Hooks" when the sign so OBVIOUSLY said "Flooks." It doesn't appear that way with "normal" cursive, but there was just something about that sign.

My husband's cousin used to think that all black people were named "Michael Jordan." (He grew up in a small midwestern town.)

[panache]

Cardinal, Maxxxie, and d_redguy along with moi......Can I join your party with a resounding "D'oh!" ???
"Earl?" "url?"......
Group smack! :smack:

[Fretful Porpentine]

Originally posted by Innanna
Here in the wilds of Ohio, we do pronounce the "l" in wolves. Not that we are at the apex of pronunciation--after all, we do have the town of Vie-enna (spelled the same as the rather famous European capital, but said as above)--but we're pretty standard for the US.

Where is your boyfriend from? Could it be a regional thing with him?
Yeah, ditto, and all the dictionaries I've ever seen say to pronounce the L. I've heard people say "woofs" or "wooves," but as far as I know, this is just flat-out wrong.

[Ferret Herder]

Originally posted by Orange Skinner
Apparantly, she'd thought 'tit' was a synonym for 'nipple.' Terrifying to think that she actually has two of them and can't even call them by name.

My guess is that she mixed it up with "teat", which really is another word for nipple.

[semi-hijack]Regarding the second quoted sentence - my freshman year in college, my roommate was sexually active with her boyfriend. She insisted it was too embarrassing to say the word "penis", but yet she could manage to say "pee-pee" instead. I personally found it more embarrassing to try to say the latter, at least with a straight face - and I certainly wouldn't have referred to my boyfriend's penis in that fashion![/semi-hijack]

[Phoebestar]

For the longest time, I thought the (old) eagle logo for the United States Postal Office was supposed to be the hat the mailman wore. For the life of me, I couldn't see an eagle there.

Look at it here:
http://www.creighton.edu/mailcenter/Graphics/usmail_logo.png

[Royal Nonesuch]

Another erroneous pronunciation for "misled:" until about the age of twelve I said MISS-uld.

Growing up my family could never decipher the penultimate lyric to the "All In the Family" theme song. One day in my twenties I finally put it together from memory:

Gee our old LaSalle ran great

Only by driving through Hartford, CT on a college-shopping trip did I learn that some highway exits are on the left and not on the right. Several years later I learned that the signs for exits on the left have the exit number at the top left of the sign instead of the top right.

[R@inDog]

Was fun for a professional lurker of the board to read all these.

Me? Photo-graffie. My brain still has to perform a brief scramble to make it come out of my mouth correctly...

[davidm]

Originally posted by Chum
...I've always pronounced "wolves" with the "l" sound. My boyfriend likes to tease me about it... I've never heard it pronounced without the "l". I think your boyfriend may be mistaken. From Merriam-Webster Online (http://www.m-w.com/home.htm) :Main Entry: 1wolf
Pronunciation: 'wulf
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural wolves /'wulvz/

[Zsofia]

I hadn't really ever thought about it, but until I saw the recent proliferation of Pit threads I never realized you have to flush a urinal. I'm not sure I've ever seen one up close and personal.

And I don't think I've ever heard anybody say "wolf" without the "l". My 'l' and many others around my part of the South are a little indistinct, much like how I have a hard time saying "horror' and "whore" differently and say "pin", "pen", and "peeing" almost exactly the same, but there's definately an 'l'.

Also, count me another whooshee on the Wierd Earl thing.

[Elret]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Achernar
This isn't exactly a pronunciation issue, but I thought "Kim Jong Il" was pronounced "Kim Jong the second". I also did not get the title Shanghai Noon until I saw it the second time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm slow. I don't get it.

[CalMeacham]

Growing up my family could never decipher the penultimate lyric to the "All In the Family" theme song. One day in my twenties I finally put it together from memory:

Gee our old LaSalle ran great

Only by driving through Hartford, CT on a college-shopping trip did I learn that some highway exits are on the left and not on the right. Several years later I learned that the signs for exits on the left have the exit number at the top left of the sign instead of the top right.



A lot of people couldn't understand this line as they originally sang it. After a year or so they re-recorded the opening with more clearly enunciated words. But as it was originally sung I couldn't figure out what they were supposed to be saying. It sounded like an Italian greeting to an American woman:



"Giarola, Sarah Grey!"

[Ferret Herder]

Originally posted by Elret
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Achernar
This isn't exactly a pronunciation issue, but I thought "Kim Jong Il" was pronounced "Kim Jong the second". I also did not get the title Shanghai Noon until I saw it the second time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm slow. I don't get it.

I didn't realize it until reading this thread, but it's a pun on the classic Western film High Noon (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0044706); Shanghai Noon also happens to be a Western. (I haven't seen it, so I don't know if there are any plot comparisons to be drawn between the two films.)

[kung fu lola]

Until recently, I didn't get the irony of Weird Al's "Money For Nothing" parody.
You know, that a song about crass consumerism and a culture of entitlement would be used to tell the story of The Beverley Hillbillies: money for nothin'.

Me dumbass.

[lovelyluka]

Originally posted by Chum

I've always pronounced "wolves" with the "l" sound.

I do too, but apparently this is a fairly common thing.

OTOH, I pronounce the "w" in sword - something I know is wrong, but reading at too early of an age made it habit. I also have to correct myself when I say geustures; I always, ALWAYS pronounce it like the game "Guess-tures". :smack:

'Course, I have a good excuse, living in Tennessee near MY-lin (Milan) and CAY-ro (Cairo).

[Winnie]

For years I thought herpes were just bugs. In elementary school we played a game where instead of just "boys have the cooties", we decided "boys have cooties, girls have herpes" and chased each other around like mental patients. That night I remember telling my parents at the dinner table what a fun game we played where the boys had cooties and girls have herpes. They asked me if I knew what a herpe was and I told them it was some kind of bug. Of course no one ever clued me in to the real meaning so it was probably late high school when I finally realized what it was.

I had many unknowns about sex in my former years, due to my repressed Catholic upbringing :) The in-and-out thing didn't really make sense, I just thought a man inserted his penis and left it in there until he was "done" (an idea which I didn't understand either). LIke others here I though blowjob was just blowing on the penis until he was "done". "Eating someone out" was completely unknown to me, and I think I remember thinking it was someone eating food off another person's private parts. My sophomore year boyfriend clued me in otherwise and thought it was the height of hilarity that I didn't know what any of that stuff was. How was I supposed to know? How did everyone else get this information and I didn't?

[Cardinal]

"High Noon" - Gary Cooper, I think. Old western.

"Shang-High Noon" - Jackie Chan. Kung-Fu western in England.

[Lok]

Originally posted by Cardinal
"High Noon" - Gary Cooper, I think. Old western.

"Shang-High Noon" - Jackie Chan. Kung-Fu western in England.
Actually, Shanghai Noon was a martial arts western in the American west. Shanghai Knights is the same characters in England. Looks like fun.

Lok

[Janie Jones]

I didn't know until recently that the brand-name disinfectant "Lysol" was a play on words, i.e., lyse all.

To lyse: a biology term meaning "to kill cells via membrane breakage."

[dwc1970]

I never knew the origin of the "Lysol" product name, either.

I never learned the card game "Go Fish" as a kid. Nobody ever taught it to me. I didn't know anything about the game until I recently looked it up on the web. Other card games I never learned were Old Maid or War.

For the longest time I thought a skirt and a dress were the same thing.

There are lots of French words and phrases commonly used in English that I have never taken the time to learn and commit to my lexicon. Same goes for Latin.

[Indygrrl]

There's a car commercial with a woman driving her car, first with the puppy and the guy, then the hippy and the dog, then the businessman with the dog, then her alone with the dog--I thought those were all supposed to be the same guy. Duh. The song playing is talking about boyfriends, so I figured out that they were all different guys.

[Cardinal]

I have a friend who is a missionary kid, and grew up with American parents in France. He said he didn't know that English used "nonchalant" until he saw it on his college entrance exams to go to U. of Virgina. He knew immediately what it must mean, because he knew it in French as a native speaker, but he'd never heard it in English, although he has a perfect American accent.

[rowrrbazzle]

Originally posted by Royal Nonesuch

Growing up my family could never decipher the penultimate lyric to the "All In the Family" theme song. One day in my twenties I finally put it together from memory:

Gee our old LaSalle ran greatOriginally posted by CalMeacham
A lot of people couldn't understand this line as they originally sang it. After a year or so they re-recorded the opening with more clearly enunciated words. I was among the confused. It wasn't until season 3 and their third take of the song that it became understandable. If you compare the versions, in the first two they weren't pronouncing the "d" in "old" or the "t" in "great" very clearly.

Before I heard it spoken, I thought "epitome" was pronounced "epp - i - TOAM".

Just a couple of days ago I was watching a program about Greece on the History Channel. I heard the word "Boeotia" pronounced "bee-OH-shuh". I had to check a dictionary before I was convinced that was right. I had always pronounced it to myself as "boh-EE-shuh".

[Dr_Paprika]

I thought Dubya was George Bush Jr.'s nickname too.

I couldn't begin to tell you the number of times I've mispronounced words I have read and never heard spoken.

I once embarrassed myself singing in my loud, drunk voice to Sting's Every Breath You Take, by Puff Daddy.

[ladycarrie]

That some turkeys can fly and that only the males gobble and that they are really fast.
:smack:

[lothos2002]

Count me in the Weird Earl's. I always thought it must be a contributor from way back (the very often mentioned "AOL Days") and that they kept the name in honour of him or something. :o

I had no idea that hens only lay one egg a day, I thought that they did a basketfull all the time, since that's what it always looks like in colouring books. I'm still not sure if this is right, though... :dubious:

Oh, and another thing. How is "awry" pronounced?

[danceswithcats]

A conversation with my Brother regarding misconstrued lyrics brought forth the usual:

There's a Bathroom on the Right, CCR

'Scuse me while I Kiss this Guy, Hendrix

And the menage a trois song, Groovin. SIL asks what we're talking about, and reveals that she always thought it was: "Life would be ecstasy, you and me and Leslie".

SIL did not share our levity. :D

[Cardinal]

"Uh-rye"

[Crafter_Man]

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I recalled something I learned just a few months ago.

I was having a discussion with someone in a chat room about music when the discussion turned to The Beatles. I spelled the band name “Beetles” and the other guy spelled it “Beatles.” I eventually noticed the discrepancy and it suddenly dawned on me – for the first time in my life (I’m 35) – that the band name is spelled Beatles. I swear to God I never knew it up until then. I then realized that it was a fun play on words; Beetles spelled with the word “Beat.” I still can’t believe I’ve never realized this. Am I the only one?

[Yumblie]

I never noticed that either. That's actually quite clever. I knew the band was Beatles and the bugs are beetles, but for some reason I never noticed a difference. I'm glad I get to find this out at the tender age of 19 and not, say, 35. You've bravely sacrificed your own dignity to save me from your own horrible fate. Thank you.

[Earl of the CC]

Lobsang , I can't believe I'm the first to praise this brilliant post of yours.
I didn't know I had a crumb on my face until someone told me

That's GENIUS!



...Eh hem.


Anyway, until reading a book partially set around Britain in 5th grade I thought that Ireland was somewhere around South America. I think that was because I associated both South America and Ireland with green. (South America for all its jungles. Ireland, naturally, is known for causing brutal pinchings on St. Patrick's Day for all those who are absentminded enough to forget to wear green that day)

Still, though, I outright clung to that belief until that point. I remember watching "The Spirit of St. Louis" on TV with my dad and Lindbergh looks down and thinks "That must be Ireland" and I thought "Wow. He's WAY off course".:smack:

[elfkin477]

Originally posted by Psycho Pirate
I also stink at deciphering song lyrics. Examples? Sure.
Theme from the Jeffersons.
"Now we're up in the big leagues. Kiss my burnin' fat."


:D I've got one too, but a different line. In my defense, "The Jeffersons" went off the air when I was eight, so this was a misconception I held in first or second grade. So, the Jeffersons are black, right? As is one of the characters in "The Facts of Life". I knew that both shows had been on for years by the time I was old enough to watch tv, and I was beginning to grasp the concept of a spin-off. Therefore, it made perfect sense to me that the line was " Movin' on up, Tootie's gone." Yep, she must have been on the show before leaving to go to the school. :p

Now, I don't know if everyone knows this, but I had a mystery solved just a few days ago. There's this new band called Zwan who's been on the radio lately with their song "honestly." I don't really care for the song, and every time I heard it, I thought to myself " Boy, they really sound like The Smashing Pumpkins would if everyone in the band took mood stablizers." A few days ago I played some videos from AOL, and I developed a suspicion as I looked at the name before clicking on the video...So I'm the only one who didn't know that Billy Corgan started a new band, right?

Then there's the fact that it took until two and a half years ago for me to realize that food can be re-heated in an oven. I'd grown up believing that ovens were only for cooking, and that if you needed to reheat something, you needed a microwave. Which is why in the old B&W shows, made before microwaves were invented, the mothers would freak out if dinner got cold....

[cherry]

what a smoking gun is
what wag is
what dubya is ( I think its george bush)
and why ppl were saying pie in some threads

I havent done a search to learn what those other things were.. but i did ask in lj what pie was.

[mishaa]

I still don't know what the pie reference is.............

[Batsinma Belfry]

This is embarrassing......... I just found out a few days ago that 2% milk is milk with 2% fat. I thought it was water with 2% milk in it.

[ivylass]

Originally posted by mishaa
I still don't know what the pie reference is.............

I'm not sure either...people generally use it when responding to trolls. "When come back bring pie" is the line, I believe.

Of course, you can't search on pie because it's only three letters...

[Davebear]

Originally posted by Sunspace
OEM stands for 'Original Equipment Manufacturer'. When Company A buys Company B's pretty-much-finished-but-unbranded product and further customizes it then puts the Company-A name on it, Company A is said to be buying an OEM version of Company B's product. Um...yes and no. OEM does stand for Original Equipment Manufacturer, but the process you're describing is actually called Private Labelling. Sometimes Private Branding (cattle are not involved ;)). OEM is generally used in conjunction with "parts" (OEM parts), as in "Be sure the auto mechanic uses OEM parts". The idea being that OEM parts are better quality than "aftermarket" parts.

Sorry if this has already been addressed. I haven't finished reading the thread, but I knew I'd never find my way back to it if I didn't do it, now.

[rowrrbazzle]

pie: http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/pie.htm

[Davebear]

Okay. I have to get these off my chest, even if the OPs never see them.

For the guy who thought Exit Only signs meant you couldn't get back on the highway if you got off at that exit...you were right, until you changed your opinion. That's exactly what they mean, at least around here.

For the woman(?) who didn't know Ocean's Eleven was a remake...don't take any crap from your mother about it, because the remake is nothing like the original, as she claims.

For garius (sp?...sorry, it was pages ago) and the iceberg...hysterical! Beautifully written! And, don't feel badly. My GF probably knows less than you, about cooking. Also, the friend who drank the straight cordial mix, after ragging you about it...also hysterical.

For the woman whose bf wanted an awl (or, whatever he said) to baste the turkey with...yes, the tapered tube thingie with the rubber bulb on the end is called a baster.

Mine? Let's see. I still don't know how to do a spoiler.

I don't know what FOAK stands for. Even the acronym dictionary I checked didn't have that one.

I always thought oxygen was extremely flammable, until...umm...I think it was yesterday, when I ran across a related thread in GQ. That's particularly embarassing for a science major. Somehow, I managed to avoid ever learning that. I blame Walter Cronkite for that one. I can still hear him talking about how Apollo 1 burned so badly due to the high oxygen content inside capsule. I guess I've misunderstood that one all my life. It came as quite a shock. I guess it's a good thing I didn't want to be a chemist. Well, I'm old; that was a long time ago. Maybe they've improved oxygen's flame retardancy since I was in school. No? Damn! I feel like I'm the one with retardancy issues.

Oh! And, a former MIL misheard the Huey Lewis and the News song lyric as "...I want a new truck..."

I'll also throw in a plug for Shanghai Noon, since it was mentioned several times, but no one seems to have seen it. It's a great movie, even if you don't think you like kung fu/martial arts movies. It's hysterically funny.

[AfterAugust]

Until I was 10 years old, I thought "Pedestrian" was a religion.

Everytime I saw signs that read "Pedestrians Only" and "No Pedestrians beyond this point," and the like - it always seemed so unfair.

For whatever reason, I didn't say anything about my confusion to anyone, and because of this, I started to get a little paranoid. I'd walk with my family or friends into an area with a "Pedestrians Only" sign and get nervous...I mean, I wasn't Pedestrian...I never went to church.

God, I was stupid.

[ivylass]

Originally posted by rowrrbazzle
pie: http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/pie.htm

That was....interesting.

I'm assuming pie=wanker?

[mecaenas]

When I was a kid and I first learned about the difference between boys and girls I was shown a cross-section diagram of the female anatomy (showing the urethra, vagina and anus). I was confused about how people had babies because there were 3 tubes so close together - how would the guy know which one is the right one to make babies. :eek:

A few years later I figured it out, but not from first-hand experience.

[mecaenas]

Originally posted by Ca3799
I though "Ibid" was some fabulous book that had everything I needed to know in it.
What's an "Ibid"? :confused:

[ivylass]

Ibid is Latin. I'm not sure what the exact translation is, but it means the information came from the same source as the previously cited informatin.

[Tusculan]

It's short for ibidem, the same. You use it in this manner in scientific footnotes:

1. O O'Neill, Bounds of Justice, Oxford 2002, p. 15
2. Ibid., p. 13

Hilarious mistake, by the way.

[DeVena]

Originally posted by ivylass
That was....interesting.

I'm assuming pie=wanker?

I believe that wanker means masturbator.

[Tusculan]

I checked the pie URL (Earl!) and still don't get it. I guess you had to be there at the time. That, or my humor muscles are overworked after reading through this thread.

[EhhMon]

I work for the Navy as a civilian, no one ever told me that there was a military phonetic alphabet.

I talk with military personnel from other commands on a daily basis and before ending the conversation via the telephone we signed off with our initials.

My initials are RA. So I always ended the conversation with something different like "Red Arrows", "Raging Armpits", "Rolling Aardvarks"....you get the gist.......the guys on the other end would pause for a minute and would come back with the correct military phonetic alphabet.

For two year I did this and I was running out of things starting with "R" and "A" to say. But imagine my surprise when I watched "Private Ryan"..........yeah, Hull-Oh!!!

And here I was thinking these people on the other lines had no imagination. After that realization, I've been "Romeo Alpha", ever since. I've been here almost 5 years, the first two years I'd die to go back and redo.........those gasps and smirks on the other end weren't in amusement at the kewl names i was coming up with, those guys were laughing AT me.:smack:

[sonicsink]

Until I was about 12 yrs old, at a guy friends house and put it on my face asking if it was some kind of doctors mask, I had no idea what a jock strap was,did or went.

I also thought it was pretty strange that Madonna kept telling everyone what she prefered for breakfast.."oo I'm a cheerio girl"(material girl duh!)

I also had no idea until I was about 17 that its the fumes of gasoline that are flamable and not the liquid.

[jacksen9]

Just a couple of days ago I learned that the higher the thread count, the softer the sheets. Anytime I would shop for sheets, I would wonder what the big deal was about thread count.

Dutch oven - I thought it was some brand name of oven like Whirlpool, GE, or Kenmore.

[lurker anonymous]

Originally posted by Soup_du_jour
Perhaps I've said this before somewhere else.

I just learned about a year ago that Elton John is gay. I guess it was just one of those things that everyone assumes everyone else knows, but nobody tells anyone else.


i guess i got hip around the the time "the b*tch is back" came out (G) (no pun intended)

[lurker anonymous]

not coming from a religous family, but having been put into a Christian school for my problem behavior, i scanned the front of the Bible for "salms", as directed by our teacher. frustrated that i could not find it, i peeked at my classmates Bible. "oh, Pal-sums!" i blurted out. wasent there for more than 2 weeks.
my dad just found out that "lol" does not mean "lots of love"

i nearly ran off the road listening to a talk show when a caller used the word hyperbole and pronounced it hyper-bowl, then a few minutes later asked to host to quit "lamblasting" him. lol, even now.

[The Great One]

Until about 2 or 3 years ago, I thought that the word 'bureau' was said 'ba-roo." No joke. I still thank God that only my sister and Dad were in the room when I said it. If it had been my brother or even my friends...I don't think I would have ever lived it down (I'm turning red right now, if you were wondering).

[whistlepig]

I am 40 years old, aced every English test I ever took, won spelling bees, etc. But the following sentence would still make me stumble to read it out loud:

"It is the EPITOME of HYPERBOLE as to the MACABRE events which went AWRY in the GAZEBO."

I probably have mispellings from mentally struggling to not say,

"It is the EPI-TOME of HYPER-BOWL-LEE as to the MAC-COB-RUH events which went AW-REE in the GAZE-BO."

Like Garrison Keeler says, learning phonics can scar you for life when you grow up in a town where you can go for years without hearing any of the above words.

[Avarie537]

This weekend, I learned something new about my husband!!

He didn't know that you could go through a bank's drive-through service if you don't have your own deposit slip and/or pen. The BEST thing is that our bank has a little stand next to the vacuum tube with deposit slips in it. He just didn't think about the fact that they can SEND YOU STUFF through that little tube-y thing!!

[liirogue]

I also thought it was pretty strange that Madonna kept telling everyone what she prefered for breakfast.."oo I'm a cheerio girl"(material girl duh!)

Okay, I don't get this... :( Can someone explain it please?

[ladycarrie]

*because we're living in a cheerio world and I'm just a cheerio girl*

hth