# 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:** 27
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/521 "2012-03-20T15:16:19Z")
Lazy? No. Efficent. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/522 "2012-03-20T15:17:07Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > To an English speaker, Tok-yo is not difficult to say, but it is unusual to have a k and a y adjacent but spanning two syllables like that, so in the past it has been anglicized somewhat to toe-key-oh. In fact it was sometimes spelled “Tokio” in American newspapers during World War II. That might have reflected the common Western pronunciation of the time, or maybe it helped change it. I’m not sure which. [QUOTE=Mijin] I bet there are western cities that have a different Japanese pronunciation. [/QUOTE] These are not cities, but I believe the Japanese replace the /v/ sound in _Virginia_ and _Vermont_ with a /b/ — making “Bajinya”, for example. I assume they’d do something similar with _Vancouver_ and _Las Vegas_. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/523 "2012-03-20T15:21:05Z")
> [@stargazer](#): > > I said something like, “Well, we’re Protestant, so we don’t do mass, but we’ll have a church wedding.” She said, “What do you mean ‘Protestant?’ You won’t have a mass?” I sort of looked at her, saying, “You know, Protestant. Like… not Catholic?” She said, “But I thought you were a Christian.” > > The conversation went on like that - she’d never heard of Martin Luther, or Henry VIII, or anything, and apparently had no awareness of non-Catholic Christians (she’d been raised Catholic). \*There’s been a split in the one and only Christian church!? \* Seriously, that reminds me of a Jewish friend of ours who got married right out of college, and kept talking about “TV vows.” My wife asked her to explain herself, and it turns out she thought “Do you, [Bitsy], take [Bubba] as your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, through sickness and in health…” were never really said at \*real \*weddings - only on TV. She’d only ever been to Jewish weddings, and had no idea that Christian ceremonies typically use those vows. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/524 "2012-03-20T15:27:26Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > I assume they’d do something similar with _Vancouver_ and _Las Vegas_. Bueno, Las Vegas should properly be pronounced with a B… it’s you people who turn Viva las Vegas into Fifa las Fegas. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/525 "2012-03-20T15:28:25Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I don’t get the Tok-yo one. > > In any language, place names of countries or important foreign cities often have a local pronunciation that is different to the native pronunciation (or they may even have a completely different name, but that’s a different point). > > To an English speaker, Tok-yo is not difficult to say, but it is unusual to have a k and a y adjacent but spanning two syllables like that, so in the past it has been anglicized somewhat to toe-key-oh. > > I wouldn’t consider it ignorance necessarily. I bet there are western cities that have a different Japanese pronunciation. As an exercise, people should try speaking in a foreign accent (or in a language if you can) and then halfway through a sentence try and pronounce a single word “properly” from your native tongue and then go back to the foreign language. It feels weird, doesn’t it? It jars and breaks the flow of the sentence. Quite simply, use the pronunciation that is common to the language you are speaking, not the language that it comes from. For this reason, when I speak Swedish I will talk about LON-DON (both bits rhyming with “on”), a city in EHNG-LAND (“eng” starting with an “eh” sound instead of an “i” sound). ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/526 "2012-03-20T15:45:58Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Bueno, Las Vegas should properly be pronounced with a B… it’s you people who turn Viva las Vegas into Fifa las Fegas. I bet you don’t like what we’ve done with _Los Angeles_ either. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/527 "2012-03-20T16:58:41Z")
> [@Jasper\_Kent](#): > > I thought it was pronounced “horse dovers.” There’s a song popular in the ‘30s, [**Hors d’oeuvres**](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-music&field-keywords=hors+d%27oeuvres+Ambrose&x=0&y=0), that was better known as Whores’ Doors by the bands playing it. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/528 "2012-03-20T17:52:19Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > 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. Oh, right. That’s _is_ weird; the whole point of a werewolf is a person turning into a monster. My bad. ---
**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 20, 2012, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/529 "2012-03-20T18:37:08Z")
> [@shijinn](#): > > i know that. similiarly, when i use kilometres it doesn’t mean i am unaware of miles. people are also quick to jump to conclusions. 😉 Sorry, forgot to add the smiley. That one is a pet peeve of mine since becoming a moderator. People will tell me that such and such post is on “page 3” of a thread. Without knowing their “posts per page” setting, those directions are useless to me. While I don’t know anyone who uses the lowest setting (only five posts per page), a lot of people with fast Internet access and good computers use the highest (200 posts per page). ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/530 "2012-03-20T19:46:49Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Lazy? No. Efficent. You, I like. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/531 "2012-03-20T19:48:57Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:529, topic:615416”] Sorry, forgot to add the smiley. That one is a pet peeve of mine since becoming a moderator. People will tell me that such and such post is on “page 3” of a thread. Without knowing their “posts per page” setting, those directions are useless to me. While I don’t know anyone who uses the lowest setting (only five posts per page), a lot of people with fast Internet access and good computers use the highest (200 posts per page). [/QUOTE] I’d kill them. Guess it’s a good thing I’m not a moderator, eh? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/532 "2012-03-20T21:31:56Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Which is why here in Santa Barbara we go up to San Francisco and down to Los Angeles. I am often amazed at how strongly people are tied to that nomenclature. Every now and then, I like to mess with people’s heads by saying that I’m going “down to San Francisco” (from the San Jose area) or “Up to LA”. Most people usually just give me a funny look, but sometimes someone will get really flustered and say emphatically, “Uh, you mean _down_ to LA,” not as a question but as a firm statement of what I must have meant to say, as if I’d violated a firm rule rather than a general convention. Same thing happens when I say, “Out east” instead of “Back east”, and “Back west” instead of “Out West”. How can people not know that “Up means north” is not a grammatical or semantic rule, but just a usage convention? ---
**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 20, 2012, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/533 "2012-03-20T21:37:27Z")
> [@Roadfood](#): > > How can people not know that “Up means north” is not a grammatical or semantic rule, but just a usage convention? Pretty much everyone knows that. There’s no reason to be a dick about it. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/534 "2012-03-20T22:00:47Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/535 "2012-03-20T22:30:44Z")
Plenty of places along the east coast where “down” and “up” refer to toward and away from the coast. I’ve traveled north to “go down the shore.” And yes, everyone understands the standard application of these words to cardinal directions, but some people genuinely have trouble wrapping their heads around the idea that this is just a convenient convention. The only dickishness here (although it’s usually just stupidity–I too have seen peoples heads pop re: rivers flowing north) is insisting that everything must conform to that convention. ---
**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 20, 2012, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/536 "2012-03-20T23:01:07Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > And yes, everyone understands the standard application of these words to cardinal directions, but some people genuinely have trouble wrapping their heads around the idea that this is just a convenient convention. The only dickishness here (although it’s usually just stupidity–I too have seen peoples heads pop re: rivers flowing north) is insisting that everything must conform to that convention. And it’s a good thing that none of us are doing that because that would be dickish. Violating the convention “just to mess with people’s heads” is dickish as well. ---
**Author:** ![keeganst94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@keeganst94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keeganst94)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/537 "2012-03-21T02:36:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by RickJay > Military history to most Canadians is: > > A Long, Long, Long Time Ago: Canada wins War of 1812 > A Long Time Ago: Vimy Ridge > Also A Long Time Ago, Maybe After Vimy Ridge But Maybe Before: Dieppe > Probably After Those: Avro Arrow, Superplane Capable of Flying to Mars > Today: Afghanistan What about Korea? And for that matter Passchaendale, Somme, D-Day, Italy, and the liberation of the Netherlands? ---
**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 21, 2012, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/538 "2012-03-21T04:16:01Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I’d kill them. Guess it’s a good thing I’m not a moderator, eh? 🙂 Are you available for contract work? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/539 "2012-03-21T04:30:49Z")
> [@keeganst94](#): > > What about Korea? And for that matter Passchaendale, Somme, D-Day, Italy, and the liberation of the Netherlands? Speaking for myself, 20th century history was an option at my high school, and as it happened, my teacher spent so much time on WWI that we barely touched upon WWII or Korea, etc. I don’t really know why the curriculum was like this, but there you have it. I don’t expect most of my peers to have learned much of this stuff unless they went out of their way to get it (or picked it up through media, for example). Kind of sad, really. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/540 "2012-03-21T04:55:55Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I’d kill them. Guess it’s a good thing I’m not a moderator, eh? 🙂 [quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:538, topic:615416”] Are you available for contract work? 😉 [/quote] Now look. I thought that everyone understood that Cousin Vinnie and I have first dibs on any killing to be done. And that Ed doesn’t want to know about it, if it happens. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416.md?page=26) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416.md?page=28)