# Ever been shocked at what some people don't know? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 10, 2012, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416 "2012-03-10T22:36:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 25
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/481 "2012-03-19T18:07:53Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > Non-monster werewolves are an artefact of the last 20 years or so (basically since the Werewolf RPG). There are probably some other odd exceptions out there (Poul Anderson’s _Operation Chaos_ stories had a heroic werewolf), but in general prior to that if there was a “heroic” werewolf, it was a human struggling against the curse a la Oz in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What I meant was, she didn’t know that werewolves aren’t hairy with fangs all the time. In other words, she didn’t know about the idea of a human transforming because of a full moon (or whatever). This came up because she was asked to make a werewolf costume. ---
**Author:** ![Bemused](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/46a35a/32.png) [@Bemused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bemused)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/482 "2012-03-19T18:37:49Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Someone I know – an educated adult – until recently thought that south was downhill, and north uphill. Perhaps having lived her whole life literally looking at the Hudson River flow by (by chance, really, from two locations quite far apart, in two phases of her life), helped to reinforce her mistake, since the Hudson does happen t flow from north to south. Might be from looking at mercator projection maps of the Earth hanging on the wall in school (do they still hang maps on the wall in school?). The north pole is invariably at the top of the map, and the south pole at the bottom. Hence, north is up, south is down. ---
**Author:** ![Bemused](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/46a35a/32.png) [@Bemused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bemused)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/483 "2012-03-19T18:45:01Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > OK, fair enough. I know there are a ton of phonemes in French that English doesn’t have, and perhaps my bilingualism gets in the way of my trying to understand why words get mangled the way they do - it seems easy to me, even easier than the various ier/é/er sounds, so it really didn’t occur to me that people don’t even perceive the v. Certainly not just French. My ex-wife is an Asian Indian, and a native Tamil speaker. I tried to learn that language, and had a lot of trouble with it because I literally don’t hear some of the sounds and shifts. it is ear-training and we all go through it. As a specific example, the name Rama is both a male and a female name. But it is pronounced differently for males and for females - and I can’t hear the difference. To vastly exaggerate the difference, for a male, Rama is pronounced with a short a sound on the first a, sort of like the a in the word car. For females, it is pronounced “Ruma” with a short u sound. But the actual difference is much more subtle than I’ve made it here, and in normal speech I don’t hear it. Maybe, if I were immersed in the language, I would eventually figure it out. Or maybe not: consider the stereotypical Japanese speaker speaking English: “Rots of ruck, Charrie!” They can’t distinguish the “l” from the “r” - they are ear-blind to the difference. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/484 "2012-03-19T18:50:16Z")
> [@Bemused](#): > > Might be from looking at mercator projection maps of the Earth hanging on the wall in school (do they still hang maps on the wall in school?). The north pole is invariably at the top of the map, and the south pole at the bottom. > > Hence, north is up, south is down. Which is why here in Santa Barbara we go up to San Francisco and down to Los Angeles. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/485 "2012-03-19T18:52:43Z")
I’m surprised no one has linked to xkcd yet. This one gives me a chuckle: [World According to Americans](http://xkcd.com/850/). (Click on the image for a bigger version.) ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/486 "2012-03-19T18:54:50Z")
> [@Bemused](#): > > Maybe, if I were immersed in the language, I would eventually figure it out. Or maybe not: consider the stereotypical Japanese speaker speaking English: “Rots of ruck, Charrie!” > > They can’t distinguish the “l” from the “r” - they are ear-blind to the difference. Or the number of English speakers who think “Tokyo” is a 3-syllable word. “My woman from To-kee-yo…” ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/487 "2012-03-19T19:19:25Z")
> [@Bemused](#): > > Certainly not just French. > > My ex-wife is an Asian Indian, and a native Tamil speaker. > > I tried to learn that language, and had a lot of trouble with it because I literally don’t hear some of the sounds and shifts. it is ear-training and we all go through it. > > As a specific example, the name Rama is both a male and a female name. But it is pronounced differently for males and for females - and I can’t hear the difference. > > To vastly exaggerate the difference, for a male, Rama is pronounced with a short a sound on the first a, sort of like the a in the word car. For females, it is pronounced “Ruma” with a short u sound. > > But the actual difference is much more subtle than I’ve made it here, and in normal speech I don’t hear it. > > Maybe, if I were immersed in the language, I would eventually figure it out. Or maybe not: consider the stereotypical Japanese speaker speaking English: “Rots of ruck, Charrie!” > > They can’t distinguish the “l” from the “r” - they are ear-blind to the difference. I’ve experienced this too - with Chinese coworkers. I believe it was the word for “yes” which, depending on the tone you use … and then someone invariable draws the following on a paper towel, as if it explains anything at all to a French-Canadian white chick: / \ - U … could mean _poem_ or _tree_ (I could be forgetting that). I spent the better part of a day trying to hear the difference and repeat it, and totally failed over and over. My coworkers thought it was hilarious. I think I - once or twice - managed to distinguish the _ma_ used for _horse_ and for _mother_? :o It’s been a long time, and that’s the extent of the Chinese that I know. I just occasionally _forget_ about these “tone deaf” moments between English and French, because I speak them both, but then get reminded with other languages. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/488 "2012-03-19T19:42:04Z")
> [@Bemused](#): > > Might be from looking at mercator projection maps of the Earth hanging on the wall in school (do they still hang maps on the wall in school?). The north pole is invariably at the top of the map, and the south pole at the bottom. > > Hence, north is up, south is down. Yup, that’s surely part of it. Pretty much any map, not just wall ones, have north as “up” (though I concede the point that the “upness” is more “uppy” when it’s hanging on a wall than when it’s lying on a table). I think even more, in the case of my mother, I mean, my friend, is from looking at _globes_. The three-dimensionality of a globe really does make it feel like water should trickle down from the north pole (and then drip off into space along the equator? leaving the entire southern hemisphere dry? whatever…). ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/489 "2012-03-19T19:46:43Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Interestingly enough, I skip over that first “r”, and say “rez-uh-vwahr.” I only pronounce that “r” if I’m carefully enunciating. Now that **WhyNot** mentions it, I have heard people say something like “rez-uh-vawr.” > > I suppose that “voir dire” as another counterexample is probably not going to get much traction. Yeah, I’m beginning to get the picture that, of all the sound sequences “not native to English”, that one comes closest to having now been incorporated deeply into the language after all. “Bw”, too, as in French “bois”. One clue to how bw- has basically become “nativized” (along with vw-, probably) is that it you can find it in new coinages – such as that Doper favorite: BWA-ha-ha-ha-ha! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/490 "2012-03-19T20:03:08Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > Or the number of English speakers who think “Tokyo” is a 3-syllable word. > > “My woman from To-kee-yo…” So it’s supposed to be Tok-yo? ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/491 "2012-03-19T20:27:58Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > So it’s supposed to be Tok-yo? To-kyo Though I am curious about the Japanese family name “Uehara”. Given my limited-though-slightly-better-than-most-Americans’ understanding of Japanese pronunciation, I know that consecutive vowels are _typically_ pronounced separately, but in practice are often run together, especially at the beginning of a word. So _I_ would pronounce Uehara as, roughly, weh-HA-ra. But there’s a Japanese baseball player in MLB with that name, and the announcers consistently pronounce it OO-ee-HA-ra. I don’t know if this is the correct pronunciation given to them by the player himself, or if it’s their “best guess” (since I’m usually listening to the _other_ team’s announcers. I remember when my Mariners first got Ichiro, and everybody I knew who hadn’t actually _heard_ the name (they’d only seen it in print) was saying “ih-CHEER-o”. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/492 "2012-03-19T21:14:17Z")
I can find support for pronouncing Tokyo as [Toe-key-oh](http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/Tokyo) and as [Toke-ee-oh](http://inogolo.com/pronunciation/d291/Tokyo). So I don’t think it’s fair to say people are wrong for pronouncing it with three sylables. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/493 "2012-03-19T21:30:52Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > So it’s supposed to be Tok-yo? Isn’t it To-kyo by original construction? ---
**Author:** ![TheBoltEater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@TheBoltEater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBoltEater)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/494 "2012-03-19T23:02:31Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Yup, that’s surely part of it. Pretty much any map, not just wall ones, have north as “up” (though I concede the point that the “upness” is more “uppy” when it’s hanging on a wall than when it’s lying on a table). > > I think even more, in the case of my mother, I mean, my friend, is from looking at _globes_. The three-dimensionality of a globe really does make it feel like water should trickle down from the north pole (and then drip off into space along the equator? leaving the entire southern hemisphere dry? whatever…). Since you brought this up specifically in connection to rivers, don’t forget that the biggest and best known rivers in America (like the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Colorado) actually _do_ run generally north to south, thereby reinforcing the idea that north is up and south is down. The Mighty Mississip’ runs straight down the middle of the country - from top to bottom. All the water starts from a big lake or something way up at the top of the country and then naturally flows out the bottom in New Orleans, as God intended. Rivers that flow from south to north are probably the work of the devil, if they really even exist at all - which they don’t, no matter what those lying elitist Democrats/Europeans/Communists/EnviroFascists would have you believe. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/495 "2012-03-19T23:34:24Z")
> [@shijinn](#): > > 10 pages! i’m just shocked at the diverse amount of stuff people are expected to know… Like the fact that a 454-post thread may be 10 pages for you, but anywhere from 3 to 91 pages for someone else? ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/496 "2012-03-19T23:50:05Z")
> [@TheBoltEater](#): > > Rivers that flow from south to north are probably the work of the devil, if they really even exist at all - which they don’t, no matter what those lying elitist Democrats/Europeans/Communists/EnviroFascists would have you believe. And the Egyptions. Fuck those guys. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/497 "2012-03-19T23:52:49Z")
> [@TheBoltEater](#): > > Since you brought this up specifically in connection to rivers, don’t forget that the biggest and best known rivers in America (like the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Colorado) actually _do_ run generally north to south, thereby reinforcing the idea that north is up and south is down. And then you get nice L-shaped rivers like the Columbia. I’ve lived on this river my whole life … except the first 17 years were in Vancouver, WA, so that looking across the river meant I was looking south. Then my family moved to Wenatchee, WA, again right on the Columbia river, except now looking across it means I’m looking east. Took a good while after the move to get straight on which direction was north. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/498 "2012-03-19T23:58:23Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:495, topic:615416”] Like the fact that a 454-post thread may be 10 pages for you, but anywhere from 3 to 91 pages for someone else? [/QUOTE] This is 13 for me. Which is perfect. Months spent fine tuning my settings have payed off handsomely. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/499 "2012-03-20T00:23:05Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > And the Egyptions. Fuck those guys. You’re just in denile. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/500 "2012-03-20T00:29:28Z")
> [@TheBoltEater](#): > > Since you brought this up specifically in connection to rivers, don’t forget that the biggest and best known rivers in America (like the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Colorado) actually _do_ run generally north to south, thereby reinforcing the idea that north is up and south is down. The Mighty Mississip’ runs straight down the middle of the country - from top to bottom. All the water starts from a big lake or something way up at the top of the country and then naturally flows out the bottom in New Orleans, as God intended. Rivers that flow from south to north are probably the work of the devil, if they really even exist at all - which they don’t, no matter what those lying elitist Democrats/Europeans/Communists/EnviroFascists would have you believe. Finally, an explanation for the hellhole that is [Jacksonville, Florida.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Johns_River)😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416.md?page=24) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416.md?page=26)