Last summer the name of the sports stuff, Titleist, became clear to me. In my head, it was pronounced “Tit-leist”. I swear a light bulb actually went off over my head when I looked at it one day and the “Title-ist” pronunciation became obvious. What can I say? I’m not a jock.
(And I thought ‘magician’ and ‘musician’ were the same word when I was a kid. I didn’t know how anyone knew which one they meant.)
Embarrassment by proxy - my brother-in-law was in his thirties when he discovered that dill pickles and cucumbers were the same vegetable. He had just never associated them before.
OK, so I do the “add up small numbers on my fingers” thing too. I’ve got six of something and I need to know how many I’ll have when I add eight more, so I very discreetly tap my fingers on the table while under my breath saying “7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14”
And I’m an engineer. Dependent on math pretty much daily.
Thank goodness for the electronic pocket calculator, that’s all I can say.
On a slightly related note:
Up until a few weeks ago, my friend’s MIL, at the age of 55+, was under the impression that men, after urinating only, wipe themselves.
This came up when his two year old son was observed to wipe himself after “peeing like a big boy” and ratted his grammy out, when questioned about where he learned to do that.
The best bit:
The whole clan was on a road trip, and out of left field, in the middle of a conversation about something completely unrelated, my buddy blurts out, “Y’know, boys don’t wipe when they’re standing, they just shake.”
I didn’t either. One day I got curious, and popped a few search terms into Google. There’s an awful lot of stuff out there to wade through to find non-porn pics, but at least the mystery will be solved for you Just don’t do it at work !
My turn: I thought a blow job consisted of putting the penis in your mouth and blowing :o (that smiley is so appropriate)
I thought “oral” was sucking on it, and a ‘blow job’ was blowing in it. Luckily DH (before he was DH) quickly stopped me before his penis became my own personal balloon ! :smack:
Me too! My problem is that I can’t “see” numbers in my head the way I can with words. The numbers get jumbled with remarkable swiftness. This has led me to some painfully embarassing moments.
A friend of mine told me yesterday that she never knew that birds had sexual intercourse. She’d always thought that the eggs came out semi-soft and were fertilized in the manner of fish. I confessed that I, honest to God, had no idea that penuts grew underground. I had always pictured “peanut bushes.” Then, another friend chipped in that she’d been shocked to learn that french fries were made from potatoes. She’d thought they were some sort of artificially constructed material, like pasta.
Sometimes, it amazes me what smart people don’t know. Some things seem so “obvious” to others that it’s inconcievable that someone else doesn’t know it.
I can’t think of one of my own – at least, nothing I’m willing to admit – but once on a date with a guy, on a lovely summer night by Lake Michigan, we observed how the moon’s reflection on the water made a “road” from us to the moon. (How poetic, right?) He thought it was very fortunate that we just happened to be standing at the end of that “road” – that if we were a couple of miles away, we’d see it at a perpendicular.
OK, so I’m reading this thread and chuckling to myself at some of the revelations. I’m trying to think of something to add, and frankly I just couldn’t come up with anything. Just as I was feeling particularly enlightened I come to read this final post.
I thought thats what this was…and I have no idea what it is if it’s not!!!
Omniscient, “pelicula” in Spanish means film, as in “movie.” Its appearance on a TV schedule would mean, I imagine, that an as-yet-to-be-determined movie will be shown in that time slot.
I can barely tie my shoes. That’s pretty bad. And I don’t know left from right. And the question “Do you mind if I…”, confuses me, because if I say yes or no, I always get a “So you don’t mind?”.
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.
Also, it was in college when I learned Martin Luther and Martin Luther King were two different people.
As for answering the OP, boy do I have a lot of these, both for myself and others.
Until just a few months ago, I had no idea anyone wiped by reaching from behind. Even worse, I learned for the first time that in some circles reaching from the front is considered “unmanly”!
My mother never knew until I told her a few years ago that men shave or trim their pubes, too.
I knew a kid in high school who genuinely believed that if a person was sufficiently trained in the martial arts he could kick a gun out of somebody’s hand from across the room before they could be shot.
Also while in high school, I was friends with a girl who admitted she had absolutely no idea how to operate a washing machine.
In the sexual realm, I’ll admit the more I hear a woman talk about how great she is at giving head, the more I expect her to be lousy. It just seems to work out that way IRL, unfortunately.
I already believed it, but after reading this thread I am absolutely convinced that on average women don’t know any more about female genitalia than men do. I mean, c’mon, a woman who thought she peed with her clitoris?
I also just learned the ‘proper’ way of tying shoelaces about a year and a half ago (I’m 18). Prior to that I’d use the loopy method.
For a while I thought Merril Lynch was the name of the anchor who hosted the financial news.
I also thought that WWF (or whatever they’re called now) wrestlers obtained their muscles through natural means and that they wouldn’t stoop so low to gain muscle mass through steroids.
I’ve never punched anyone, been punched or seen anyone punch, so I always thought it sounded like they do in the movies.
I can’t think of any personal ones, although I’m sure there are quite a few, but there is one that always makes me shake my head in shame at the quality of education in the States…
Here in Prague we have a river named the Vltava. It runs from south to north. Yes, amazingly enough folks, it flows UP a map! Can’t believe it? Join the line behind about 10 other Americans I’ve had to whip out a compass on…Never had that question raised from any other nationality.
Oh, I remember a personal one now! Up until I was a teenager I thought that if the earth stopped rotating we would all fly off into space. Thank God Henson & Peary were safe from my addled brain.
You know those drink cartons with the straws attached? Until a month ago, I never knew you could pull out one of those straws from the clear plastic wrap without detaching the wrap from the carton.
Me too! One of my former co-workers owns and runs a golf store in addition to her day job, and upon hearing her using the correct pronunciation when referring to golf balls, I sheepishly admitted to her that until that moment I too had always assumed it was pronounced “Tit-leist”. She laughed her arse off for what seemed like ages, but did concede that it was an easy mistake to make.
It took me well over a year to learn how to masturbate correctly. In the meantime, I stuck my penis in every round opening I could find (shampoo bottle – much too small, mayonnaise jar – a bit too big; never did find anything that worked). I also stuck all manner of objects up my bum. I was hard all the time but couldn’t figure out how to get myself off. I even tore holes in the centerfolds and stuck my penis through the holes. Holy papercuts, Batman!
I had access to vast amounts of porn magazines at the time (13 years old) and read lots of Penthouse Letters, but it took over a year for the words “she stroked my throbbing member up and down” to sink in. When I did figure it out, I thought I was going to pee in my own face. So I held back until it dawned on me that I was about to ejaculate. I let go and hit myself in the nose.
Only now, as I read “I’d like to buy a vowel”, did I realize that it contains every vowel. And that it’s probably a mnemonic, for that reason.
Until recently, I didn’t know you had to push the tampon out of the plastic applicator. I thought the tampon, as it sat inside you, was supposed to be encased in the plastic, slit-top sheath. (Which, of course, made me wonder how the hell they were effective or safe-- no wonder you hear so much about Toxic Shock Syndrome!) See, when tampons and pads were discussed with me, as a pre-teen, the details stopped at “Some tampons come with applicators to keep your finger from getting oogy when you insert them.” And since neither I nor anyone I knew used them, I never had to give them much thought.
I still don’t completely think about directions in terms of north, south, east, and west. I was born and lived most of my life in Hawaii, where you’re more likely to hear “leeward”, “windward”, “mauka”, and “makai”, and I got used to thinking about direction and orientation in those terms. The system is island(Oahu?)-centric; you consider your geographic orientation rather than an absolute orientation. “Mauka”, for example, means in the direction of the mountains, and “makai” means towards the ocean. And most people give directions by referring to landmarks. So for a while, navigating through any mainland city intimidated me (even if I had Mapquest’s help) and freeways could be hellishly confusing.
Just don’t do it at work !