# 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:** 4
### Author:  [@CairaJade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairaJade)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/61 "2004-02-07T22:30:13Z")
From m-w
> [@](#):
>
> Main Entry: 1forte
> Pronunciation: 'fOrt, 'fort; 2 is often 'for-"tA or for-'tA or 'for-tE
> Function: noun
> Etymology: French fort, from fort, adjective, strong
> 1 : the part of a sword or foil blade that is between the middle and the hilt and that is the strongest part of the blade
> 2 : one’s strong point
> usage In forte we have a word derived from French that in its “strong point” sense has no entirely satisfactory pronunciation. Usage writers have denigrated 'for-"tA\ and 'for-tE\ because they reflect the influence of the Italian-derived 2forte. Their recommended pronunciation 'fort, however, does not exactly reflect French either: the French would write the word le fort and would rhyme it with English for. So you can take your choice, knowing that someone somewhere will dislike whichever variant you choose. All are standard, however. In British English 'fo-"tA\ and 'fot\ predominate; 'for-"tA\ and \for-'tA\ are probably the most frequent pronunciations in American English.
Interesting, I never knew. According to this, the Italian pronounciation is not incorrect, however. Having been a musician my whole life, I always thought it made sense, in that you are loudest doing what you’re best at. _shrug_
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### Author:  [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/62 "2004-02-07T22:46:29Z")
Wow, I had never heard of Forte being pronounced fôrt
> [@Dictionary.com](#):
>
> In a recent survey a strong majority of the Usage Panel, 74 percent, preferred the two-syllable pronunciation
Although 8 years of French have left me unable to pronounce it that way. And it looks like we’re winning too.
My biggest epiphany occured when I was about 9. My eyes got real wide and I exclaimed in great excitement “The trees have leaves!”
Boy does my family love that. Specifically it’s only referring to a painting in the optometrist’s office which had a bunch of trees in it. It had always just been a green blur till I got my glasses. That took more then a decade to live down.
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### Author:  [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/63 "2004-02-07T22:47:11Z")
> [@](#):
>
> See, I was thinking the guy with the mustache was prominently featured in the video, so he had to be Holland Oates, and I couldn’t figure out who the other guy was.
Hehe I have a similar one. One time I was watching a show where they invited the well known musician “The Captain Entineel” up on stage, and I commented on the idiot chick went up on stage with him univited. My mom, ever-so-tactful, Laughed her ass off for 10 minutes before pointing out that it was “Captain and Tennille”.
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### Author:  [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/64 "2004-02-07T23:18:39Z")
A couple years ago I was reading an economics textbook which mentioned in passing a certain economic policy of some guy named President William Clinton. I thought and thought and thought for days, “who is this William Clinton fellow, and what country was he President of?”
Then, _four months_ later, it suddenly dawned on me that they were talking about good ol’ Bill. And for some reason, everybody in the entire Universe, except for the author of this economics book, always calls him Bill, and therefore I hadn’t made the connection to William.
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### Author:  [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/65 "2004-02-07T23:52:09Z")
Until, um … let us simply say “very recently,” I thought that Ralph Ellison (author of “Invisible Man”) and Harlan Ellison (Hugo-award winning writer of short stories, movie and television scripts) were the same person.
In a nutshell, I thought Ralph/Harlan Ellison was an African American man who wrote social commentary, and also, in his spare time, wrote science fiction to unwind. It made sense in my head. Whenever I would see the name Ralph Ellison, I would think “boy, I must have a bad memory, I thought that guy’s name was Harlan,” and then the next time I saw Harlan Ellison’s name, I would say to myself “geez louise, I’ve really got to start paying attention, I could have sworn that guy’s name was Ralph.” For no reason known to me, despite having a college education during which I saw both those names a multitude of times, it took me a very long time to wonder whether 1. I had sustained an unusual brain injury that left me unable to remember this person’s name, or 2. maybe, just maybe, there were two people at work here.
There’s really no excuse for that sort of behavior.
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### Author:  [@Fifteen\_Iguana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fifteen_Iguana)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/66 "2004-02-08T00:22:04Z")
Oh god, memories.
When I was a freshman in college I was in an advanced English class and I terribly wanted to impress the professor (and for all you youngun’s out there, let me tell you that one of the best things about being almost fifty is that I spend considerably less time worrying abut what people think of me than I do about whether there is still some chocolate ice cream left). One day in class I said “apropos” except I pronounced it to rhyme with “a slow ghost” without the T. He looked at me like I was very odd.
Not much later he had to explain to me that there was no such word as “anotherwords.”
And getting away from words, there is an early Billy Joel song called “Stop in Nevada.” I had probably listened to that album a hundred times before I said, “oh, he was getting divorced.” And everyone stared at me I’d like just grown a third ear.
Sigh,
FIfteen Iguana
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### Author:  [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/67 "2004-02-08T01:01:02Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#):
>
> > [@Spiff](#):
> >
> > Now, I don’t want to turn this into a political debate, but I know I’m not the only one who wishes that Dubya would have an epiphany soon and start pronouncing the word nuclear properly.
>
> “You think someone would have told him by _now._ You would think that at least Condoleezza Rice would have gotten up in his face, ‘Fool, it’s NU-CLE-AR!!’”
>
> - Margaret Cho
Why don’t we get Jimmy Carter, a former nuclear engineer, to tell him? Oh, wait…
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### Author:  [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/68 "2004-02-08T01:38:59Z")
> [@delphica](#):
>
> Until, um … let us simply say “very recently,” I thought that Ralph Ellison (author of “Invisible Man”) and Harlan Ellison (Hugo-award winning writer of short stories, movie and television scripts) were the same person.
In the same vein, I was an English major in my (I think) junior year of college before I figured out Henry James and James Joyce were two different people. I’d hear about one or the other and think, “Boy, there’s not much critical consensus on this guy, is there?”
In my defense, I’d never read either of them at the time. After I read _Daisy Miller_ and _Ulysses_, my confusion evaporated.
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### Author:  [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/69 "2004-02-08T03:37:57Z")
I was reminded of this by a semi-ignorant remark Oprah made the other day. (“Are there black people in Nova Scotia…there are? How did they get there?”)
When I was in High School I went with my mom to see the Hunt for Red October. At some point she was getting confused as to which submarine the scene was occuring in. I told her “That one is our sub, with the black guy, because there’s no black people in Russia.” She said “huh?” and I said “Well, they didn’t use black people for slaves, and why would you go to Russia otherwise?”
I guess this isn’t really an episode where I had an epiphany, but I said something dumb that I now know was 100% absurd. Of course there are/were black Russians, there’s even a drink named after them!
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### Author:  [@angelicate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/angelicate)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/70 "2004-02-08T03:40:11Z")
> [@monica](#):
>
> I used to think that “hors d’oveurs” was pronounced “whores day voors.” I understood the spoken pronunciation, but never made the connection between that and the written word.
Yep. I remember ooking through a catalog of my mom’s when I was small, and seeing an hors d’oveurs serving tray or something, and asking “Mom, what are whores de’voors?”
I taught myself to read when I was pretty young, so I read a lot of words before I heard them and therefore was convinced that the word “office” was pronounced “off ice” and actually argued with my mom about it.
I also argued with my kindergarten teacher when she put up the birthday list for January and I saw that my middle name was spelled “Renee.” Of course, that spelled Re Knee, and that wasn’t my name!
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### Author:  [@angelicate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/angelicate)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/71 "2004-02-08T04:36:38Z")
Oh god, I just thought of one. My husband is the only person who knows about this.
Okay. Growing up, we lived in South Texas. My family lived in North TX, and we’d drive up there all of the time. Well, along the way were these signs, saying that we were driving along the Texas Independence Trail. These signs featured a … a WALKING BROOM? Yeah, much like the dancing mops in Fantasia, the TX Independence Trail is apparently marked by a walking broom. I never really thought about how weird that was, just that it was kind of odd.
Driving up to Austin one day with my husband when I was about 19, I looked at the signs again and realized that it wasn’t a freaking walking broom, it is a hand in a fringed leather jacket holding up a rifle. Oops.
The sign: [http://www.texas-settlement.org/images/faq-1.gif](http://www.texas-settlement.org/images/faq-1.gif)
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### Author:  [@zoogirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoogirl)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/72 "2004-02-08T04:49:09Z")
“Facade” is not “Fak-ade” Didja know that?! :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/73 "2004-02-08T05:52:18Z")
This is an embarrassing epiphany that I caused for a co-worker.
I’m from Southern Ontario, Canada. Hard by yer Lakes Erie and Ontario. Now I live in Florida. It’s amusing, yet perplexing, the lack of knowledge of Canada of so many people I’ve talked to since I’ve been here. One day, my supervisor and I were discussing something about Canada, and it took me 10 minutes to convinve him that no, Niagara Falls was not situated on the Atlantic Ocean.
I haven’t really come across any appalling misconceptions, just a general lack of awareness of, well, lots of places! Some people I’ve asked can’t even picture where the Great Lakes are. But they aren’t taught anything about Canada in school. It’s just that pink place on the map, and often they’ve never even looked at it.
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### Author:  [@emekthian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emekthian)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/74 "2004-02-08T06:08:36Z")
In my english class we are reading the book Montana 1948. I thought the book was based on a true story for some reason, and the author was the main character in the book who narrated (even though the author’s name is Larry, and the character’s name is David :smack: ). So you can guess how embarassed I was when I responded to a teacher’s question by saying, “Because the book was based on a true story”!
And I’m supposed to be one of the smart people in class, too.
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### Author:  [@quiltguy154](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quiltguy154)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/75 "2004-02-08T11:23:12Z")
Back in pre-history days I attended the New York World’s Fair[1964-65] Scattered around the various sites were maps that highlighted various attractions in the immediate vicinity. On each one was a small box that bore the legend “You are here.” After having seen several of these it amazed that they always knew where I was. Had I been implanted with some primitive homing device? Took the better part of the afternoon before the lightbulb, albeit dim, switched on. Please enter as many Homer Simpson _D’oh’s_ as you feel is appropriate.
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### Author:  [@Bites\_When\_Provoked](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bites_When_Provoked)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/76 "2004-02-08T12:43:42Z")
Since I can’t understand out the guide on [www.dictionary.com](http://www.dictionary.com) on how to say the word… can someone educate this book-learned girl on how ‘apropos’ actually _is_ pronounced? 🙂
Fortunately it’s not a word I’ve had reason to use…but if I had, I’d defintely have pronounced it in the same way as Fifteen Iguana.
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### Author:  [@Ex\_Machina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ex_Machina)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/77 "2004-02-08T14:36:34Z")
I must have drawn the ‘peace’ symbol a thousand times before someone explained to me that it was the footprint of a dove.
And for several years I saw the logo on Superman’s chest as just a group of strange geometric figures instead of an ‘S’. (I think that notion was played upon in the Superman movie.)
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### Author:  [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/78 "2004-02-08T14:48:09Z")
ap\* ro\*pos
1st syllable, _ap_ as in apple.
2nd syllable, _ro_ as in rug.
3rd syllable, _pos_ as in pole (the s is silent).
apropos- BTW, timely, relevent, opportune 🙂
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### Author:  [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/79 "2004-02-08T15:36:25Z")
You gotta watch out for those epiphanies **Ex-M** …
People have a tendency to explain things that THEY think is correct. It often makes sense when you look at it in their perspective. But according to **Unca Cece** [this](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_149.html) explains the origins of the “peace sign”.
IIRC the hippies hung the dove symbolism to it as well as the chickenfoot.
The symbol itself has been around quite awhile in one form or another. I rather liked the stop the bombing explanation. B52’s w/in a circle 😃
Oldest use of a peace sign AFAIK is found in pre-christian germanic runes as a sign of life when upright and death when overturned.
Perhaps their use of the symbol was based a dove’s foot. 🙂
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### Author:  [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/80 "2004-02-08T15:48:06Z")
I have long noticed this: while a lot of comedy pokes fun at people who make phonetic pronunciation mistakes (think Gomer Pyle: “The United States Marine _Corpse_”), in my experience it’s generally better-read, less-conversed people who do this.
I remember in high school Latin class, Rich, possibly the smartest guy in the class, was giving a report on Roman culture. When he pronounced the word ‘orgy’ with a hard g, everybody was amused, including the teacher. Apparently, while Rich was wasting his time reading textbooks, the rest of us were all learning to talk dirty.
[QUOTE=Elenia25]
> [@Ellis Dee](#):
>
> I hate those. As a young lad I read a ton, and often encountered the written word before the spoken word, or worse, thought they were different.
>
> QUOTE]
>
> I’ve had this problem all my life. I started speaking Hindi first, and while my mother spoke very good English, she spoke it with the Indian version of the British accent and still said things like “torch” instead of flashlight. My father’s English was (is!) atrocious. 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”.
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