I’ve always had the same problem. But I’m only 30, so I’m sure there are some words I know from reading them that I don’t know how to pronounce.
Problem with this is, it’s so obvious to the locals that the river is to the south (or that the mountains are to the west, or the north), that they don’t bother to explain to befuddled visitors how they know which way north is. I dealt with this twice on visits to graduate schools as a prospective student- people in Boulder and Pasadena would give north-south-east-west directions, and I felt like a fool for having to ask how they knew which way was north. They generally would tell me once I worked up the courage to ask, though.
Even more precisely, hay is made from various types of grass, as WhyNot posted. Straw is also made from grass. Alfalfa is Medicago sativa, which is a type of legume; most definitely not a grass. Both hay and alfalfa are fed to animals, which I guess is where the confusion lies. Straw, on the other hand, is inedible.
Unless it’s near sunrise or sunset, everyone has this problem. I think just about everyone in a strange town needs to orient the “map in their head” to the four directions.
Growing up, we would always drive past a sign for Woodsedge Ave. I always parsed it as wood-sedge, and it made no sense to me. After years of this, I finally saw it properly: woods edge. Doh!
Only if the natives of the town in question give directions using the four directions. If that’s not the case, I generally have no idea which way north is, and couldn’t care less.
(And of course I think of another right after my post goes through.)
The signs on the highway that say “Exit Only”? I always thought that meant the exit was only an exit, and not an entrance. So you had to watch out when you were exiting, because you couldn’t get back on the highway.
It wasn’t until I started driving that I realized it meant that the lane was exit only.
I was raised in Denver. West was always toward the mountains.
On a job interview I once got hopelessy disoriented trying to navigate from one Dallas suburb to another via meandering rural roads. It was around Noon, near the equinox, so sun directly overhead, and no landmarks at all.
At 22 yrs. old, it had never occured to me that you could somehow NOT know which way was which.
Interesting aside: While lost, I happened upon a highway department surveying crew. They were unable to provide directions. NONE of them could tell me which way north was either.
I’d be interested in where you’re drawing that distinction from: I grew up on a farm, and never knew anyone who described alfalfa (or Lucerne, as we tended to call it when I was young) as being anything but hay, the real distinction being “Hay – green stuff you cut down and bale to use as feed” and “Straw – the stuff left over from harvesting grain that you use as bedding.” In my experience cattle will eat some kinds of straw, but its nutritional value is limited.
In 5th grade I remember being puzzled over the fire alarm signal vs. tornado signal. The bell would ring 3 times for a fire alarm and 5 times for a tornado. All I could think was that the bell was ringing so fast I can’t possibly tell how many times it rings —and how are they getting 3 and 5 rings out of it? It puzzled and confounded me immensely that I, the smart kid, couldn’t count bells but all my classmates could. I gave up on trying to figure it out and would never admit that I couldn’t count bells, confident in the fact that by following my classmates I could figure out whether I was supposed to go into the hall or out into the schoolyard. I maintained my state of ignorance throughout the better portion of high school too, when I finally realized that counting the bells was very akin to counting the rings of a phone not the individual dings of the bell.
I use to think there were two rap singers: the one called “Fiance” that I kept hearing about, and the one called “Be-younce” that I kept reading about.
I guess I’m really making a historical distinction, as grass was usually cheaper and easier to grow. Just the generic term “hay” brings to mind (at least, my mind) that semi-dried fodder derived from grass, which is important regarding the “hay vs straw” question. More specialized types seem to require a qualifier, e.g., “alfalfa hay” or “clover hay”. I’m not a famer, so I’ll defer to your experience and expertise.
This will only be amusing if you’re old enough to remember when clocks and watches had hands:
When I was young – and for years and years – for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why it was called the “second hand” when, obviously, it was the third hand . . .
My mom, being a nurse but an upstanding Protestant, was a master at telling us just enough to make us think we understood about sex and get us to shut up for now.
Being the oldest, and only having brothers anyway, I had no one to tell me these things in the closet while hiding.
She told me that the baby comes out in a special place in the woman’s bottom (mind you, she’s fielding questions about her huge tummy from a 4-year old). For years after that I thought women had an extra hole in the butt cheek.
While Alfalfa is indeed a kind of hay, I think the distinction in this case goes back to the kind of plant it is and the crop rotation posed by the original person who mentioned a rotation of hay year, alfalfa year, and a fallowing year.
Alfalfa, being a legume, has a different place (agriculturally) in the rotation than any other form of hay (timothy, orchard grass, clover, etc.) Thence, the distinction.
Oddly enough, I’ve read a strip where Rob tells Satchel and Buck that they’re named after Satchel Paige and Buck O’Neill. Huh. Did Rob change his story somewhere along the line?
My own: I had a flash of brilliance when I was about seventeen and realized that “quiche”, the food mysterious product I had read about was, in fact, the eggy pie dish my mom makes quite often and I had always thought of as “keish”.
I call my dad’s mom bubbe. I’d never thought about why, and I never knew anyone else with a bubbe. I guess I assumed it was a made-up word. I was fifteen when I discovered that it’s the Yiddish word for grandmother. I am dumb.
