# Embarrassing Epiphanies
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [February 4, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561 "2004-02-04T22:56:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/21 "2004-02-05T15:07:02Z")
I trigger epiphanies for others when I explain:
It’s not, “I should **of** told you this before…”
It’s actually, “I should **have** told you this before…”
Also, I was present when my friend slapped his head when we were talking about the little songs we yelled years ago as Little Leaguers. For example, “We want a pitcher, not a glass of water!”, was one tauning chant we’d yell at the other team’s pitcher. Well, at age 36, my best friend slapped his head and said, “I just go it!” …pitcher…glass of water…ya know: a glass of water being something less than a pitcher.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/22 "2004-02-05T15:19:19Z")
Ah. It’s a 1920s Style Spelling Aid.
What an epiphany. 🙂
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### Author:  [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/23 "2004-02-05T17:21:48Z")
I’ve always been a good speller, so it was a jolt for me to realize last year that the thing on a tombstone is not an epitath. It’s epitaph. :smack forehead smilie: I wonder how many times I wrote it wrong.
For a while, I was embarrassed that I had been saying BAY-nul instead of buh-NAHL, as all the smart people on TV said it. Then I looked it up, and I was right the first time. Ha!
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### Author:  [@Ex\_Machina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ex_Machina)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/24 "2004-02-05T18:08:45Z")
I grew up in a home where golf balls were omnipresent. I was familiar with the brand name “_Titleist_” but I always heard it as a name of some sort of Teutonic derivation. Then one day decades later, staring at my ball after missing yet another two-foot putt, I looked at the word and the mundane truth smacked me between the eyes.
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### Author:  [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/25 "2004-02-05T18:46:32Z")
> [@AngelicGemma](#):
>
> I’m going to have to ask. _How_ is that possible?
That’s a really good question. Unfortunately, I don’t have a really good answer.
Basically the guy in question was really old fashioned. We went out a number of times, he always called me, asked me out, brought me flowers, paid (over my protestations) etc, etc. but somehow I always thought we were just hanging out.
I had started off by dating his brother for a time, and then we broke up and JP (former BF) suggested that I attend a wedding with Rob because JP wasn’t available to go with him. (JP was supposed to be the date, as he knew the couple as well.)
So I went to the wedding with Rob. We went out to dinner a few times. We went and saw Arachniphobia (sp?) together. We were clearly dating. And I had no idea. I just thought I was hanging out with JP’s bro.
Go figure. I still feel silly when I think about it. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/26 "2004-02-05T19:14:56Z")
Okay, I’ve posted this before, but it’s so apallingly stupid I feel that I must do more public pennance.
I am an astronomer. And a space junkie. I’ve been space-crazy since 4th grade, and have always ravenously devoured anything I could get my hands on about space exploration, rockets, astronauts, cosmonauts, etc.
As for what I am about to reveal (again) I can only blame a particular map of the Moon I had hanging on my bedroom wall throughout my adolescence, and the movie _Superman III_.
I was in _graduate school_ studying _astronomy_ when it dawned on me that the USSR never landed a manned mission on the Moon.
The Moon map on the my wall had lots of little American and Soviet flags all over it. And _Superman III_, of course, was a work of fiction. But the two together had somehow given me the the notion, probably fertilized and nurtured by liberal doses of the finest Cold War science fiction novels, that the Soviets eventually gotten to the Moon–sometime after Apollo 12, naturally, but when exactly, (of course), I could not have said.
The nature of my missapprehension was revealed in a conversation with fellow grad students, thank Murphy, without professors present.
That’s when I realized that the flags on my Moon map marked the landing sites of the USSR’s many _unmanned_ space probes. :smack:
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### Author:  [@Velma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velma)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/27 "2004-02-05T19:41:40Z")
> [@alice\_in\_wonderland](#):
>
> Once I dated a man for 2 months, and didn’t actually figure out that we were dating until about 10 years later.
>
> I’m serious. I’m not making this up. I have no explanation, although it does explain why his now-wife kept treating me like an ex-girlfriend every time we met.
>
> I probably should have clued her in so she could relax, but I really had no idea.
>
> That’s pretty embarasing.
It actually sounds like it’s more embarrassing for him! “I dated this girl for 2 months and she had no idea.”
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### Author:  [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/28 "2004-02-05T19:43:39Z")
No worries Podkayne,
I did Physics/Astronomy in college, and had always assumed that the moon race occured by the US landing mere days before the Soviets landed, my mind was saturated with too much scifi and bad TV. After overhearing a convsersation one day regarding the US astronauts being the only ones to the moon, I had an attack of “hang on a minute…” one day and went to the sciences libraries on campus researching in detail all of the missions, determined to get the whole story on the Soviet landing that never happened ☹
I still catch my brain thinking that the Soviets landed every now and then, mental habits and false memories are hard to snuff out.
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### Author:  [@Arcite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arcite)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/29 "2004-02-05T21:31:53Z")
> [@Shirley Ujest](#):
>
> Let us just say that the word **omnipotent** is not pronounced omni-po-tent.
> It’s om-nip-eh-tent.
>
> That was embarrassing.
I used to think it was pronounced that way too. I somehow acquired a tendency in early childhood to pronounce 4 syllable words with the accent on the 3rd syllable (da-da-DA-da) unless instructed otherwise. Turns out most are pronounced with the accent on the 2nd syllable and a secondary one on the last.
One I still laugh about is Episcopal. When I was a kid, we always used to drive past the sign for some Episcopal church, and I read it as ep-ih-SCOPE-al. Then one day in 7th grade my social studies teacher happened to utter the word, and I thought “ep-IH-scup-al? What’s that? It sounds like he’s saying ‘piss’! … OHHHHHHH!”
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### Author:  [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/30 "2004-02-05T22:12:29Z")
> [@Arcite](#):
>
> I used to think it was pronounced that way too. I somehow acquired a tendency in early childhood to pronounce 4 syllable words with the accent on the 3rd syllable (da-da-DA-da) unless instructed otherwise. Turns out most are pronounced with the accent on the 2nd syllable and a secondary one on the last.
I do the exact same thing. I always thought “miniseries” was one word with short i’s. Mi-ni-zeh-ryz. Then I had the mini-epiphany that it was two words. Mini and series! Duh! A little series, I get it now… :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@luluBahrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/luluBahrain)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/31 "2004-02-05T22:29:47Z")
My mom thought that misled was pronounced like missiled until she was in her 40s
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/32 "2004-02-05T22:50:10Z")
Am I the only person who had a total disconnect the first time they heard some talking about “euthenasia?”
Needless to say, they were not refering to Korean Boy Scouts.
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### Author:  [@leechbabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leechbabe)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/33 "2004-02-05T22:53:37Z")
> [@rose](#):
>
> i’m still not sure about this one… I’ve always understood from context (but never really thought about) the phrase “for all intensive purposes.” Then the other day i was watching a movie with subtitles, and it said, “For all _intents and_ purposes!”
>
> I just went and asked my roomates to spell out the phrase; one spelled it the right way (intents and) while the other spelled it ‘intensive’, as i would have, pre-epiphany.
>
> I bet a lot of people think the right word is ‘intensive’… it’s an easy mistake to make!
I had a friend who always thought that phrase was “for all intense porpoises”, I’ve picked up the habit of saying it that way now as well.
My epiphany was only yesterday when I looked at the large pile of outgoing mail on my desk and realised that in order for the letters to get to their destination I not only had to put them in the envelope, the envelope had to be put in the mail box. I seemed to have forgotten this over the Christmas break.
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### Author:  [@Greywolf73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greywolf73)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/34 "2004-02-05T22:54:19Z")
My brother used to pronounce pastels as _paste-els_ and tarantula as _tear-an-tula_.
He also used to think deers had antennas instead of antlers.
My brother was quite entertaining as a child.
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### Author:  [@Greywolf73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greywolf73)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/35 "2004-02-05T22:58:26Z")
It’s instant karma!
In the process of making fun of my brother I make a goofy mistake of my own.
It’s DEER not DEERS.
:smack:
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### Author:  [@sperfur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sperfur)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/36 "2004-02-05T23:26:00Z")
> [@Elenia25](#):
>
> So I would read constantly, and not know how to pronounce the words properly because my reading level was so far ahead of my class.
>
> But the one I clearly remember was “comfortable”. Not “com-for-table”, with table said like the thing you eat on.
>
> Not to mention words like “faux pas”.
I have a good friend who is hard of hearing. She is very well read and her English is excellent, but every once in a while I’ll hear her mispronounce a word and know that she read it instead of heard it. For example - mannequin - she pronounced it with a ‘qu’ instead of a ‘k’. She prefers that I tell her she’s mispronouncing something so she doesn’t do it again.
Recently, I’ve had several relationship type epiphanies - how people are supposed to treat each other in a long term relationship, what love is really like, stuff like that. Not embarassing so much as those that make you say ‘wow!’
That and my new husband regularly corrects my grammar and pronunciation - but It’s not gotten to the annoying stage yet. It’s still at the cute stage. Wait a few years. 😃
(In fact, he tried to correct me while I was writing this post - but I was right this time…heh heh heh. After I was typed the previous sentence I was holding his hands while he was trying to hit the backspace key with his nose. We are _so_ cute.)
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### Author:  [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2004, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/37 "2004-02-05T23:55:39Z")
> [@Podkayne](#):
>
> I was in _graduate school_ studying _astronomy_ when it dawned on me that the USSR never landed a manned mission on the Moon.
Well, if you’ve read _Rocket Ship Galileo_ (and your username suggests that you have), then you’re obviously aware that the Nazis established a permanent base on the moon in the late 1940s.
My own most embarrassing epiphany: Finding out that “Jack” is a nickname for people named “John.”
I’d gone around for 28 years thinking there was another Kennedy! Every now and then I’d casually wonder, “How come you never hear anything about JACK Kennedy anymore?”
Then I found out.
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### Author:  [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2004, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/38 "2004-02-06T00:11:46Z")
Mine, or one of them, was just a few years ago. I found out that the word forte, meaning a speciality, is pronounced “fort” and \*\*not[\b] “for-tay”. I think I, and a lot of other people apparently, mix up the word with the musical term forte, which **is** pronounced for-tay. Since I found all this out I’ve listened to other people pronounce it and I’ve only heard one person, an old-school journalist, say it correctly.
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### Author:  [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2004, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/39 "2004-02-06T00:13:44Z")
Our son basically taught himself math out of books in the basement when he was a little kid. The one that had us scratching our heads was “I just found out how to find the hip-no-tuse.”
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### Author:  [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2004, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/40 "2004-02-06T00:19:41Z")
And that is one of the ugliest coding jobs I’ve ever seen. Blech.
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