# Stuff you were embarrassed that you didn't know **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 19, 2010, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206 "2010-11-19T06:42:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/121 "2010-11-23T18:22:48Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > I was a teenager hanging out with a friend watching some other guys play pool. One of them kept talking to the other constantly calling him holmes. I didn’t realize it was just something you called somebody, I thought that was his actual name :o. The next I was talking to my friend on the phone and I mentioned one of the guys playing pool, “I can’t think of his name, although I think his last name was holmes.” :smack: > > What was worse was that the next day my friend was using the term, so he knew what it meant but didn’t tell me about it making me feel like a fool when I realized it wasn’t an actual name. Sorry to bring you down, but you still don’t get it. They aren’t saying Holmes, they are saying Homes, as in short for Homie or Home Boy, a term for friend. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/122 "2010-11-23T18:51:52Z")
> [@flight](#): > > Sorry to bring you down, but you still don’t get it. They aren’t saying Holmes, they are saying Homes, as in short for Homie or Home Boy, a term for friend. You didn’t bring me down. I know what homie and home boy mean. I think I spelled it holmes because that’s kind of what it sounded like they were saying, but yeah, it obviously was homes. At any rate it happened a long time ago back when I was very un-cool. Not that I consider myself that cool now, but at least I’m hip to the lingo. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/123 "2010-11-23T19:08:29Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > You didn’t bring me down. I know what homie and home boy mean. I think I spelled it holmes because that’s kind of what it sounded like they were saying, but yeah, it obviously was homes. > > At any rate it happened a long time ago back when I was very un-cool. Not that I consider myself that cool now, but at least I’m **hip** to the lingo. 😃 Pssst. It’s “hep.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/124 "2010-11-23T19:32:21Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Watching sports, as a kid, I would hear references to “veteran defenceman” and stuff like that. I used to think veteran athletes were former war vets. > > I used to wonder what war they had fought in. And I used to think that when a person got thrown out at first base, he had to quit the team and never play baseball again. After all, the announcer kept saying the runner was retired! Re: Homie/Homeboy. It’s a derivative of the Spanish “hombre”, litterally meaning friend. Wiki says otherwise, but that whole article seems made up and/or graffitied. I mean, it says it originated with Mexican/Hispanic immigrants in the 40s but then it digresses to something about white power.😕 ---
**Author:** ![Pyper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pyper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyper)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/125 "2010-11-23T19:54:27Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I thought Carly Simon was black until I saw her on tv about 10 years ago. > > She sounds like a MoTown singer on _You’re So Vain_ Carly Simon is multiracial. She has black ancestry. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/126 "2010-11-23T20:08:37Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Pssst. It’s “hep.” 😃 [“Hep ain’t hip, Man. Hep is square–really the squarest. Hep’s been out for the longest time!”](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1911/whats-the-origin-of-hip)😃 ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/127 "2010-11-23T20:22:48Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Re: Homie/Homeboy. It’s a derivative of the Spanish “hombre”, litterally meaning friend. Wiki says otherwise, but that whole article seems made up and/or graffitied. I mean, it says it originated with Mexican/Hispanic immigrants in the 40s but then it digresses to something about white power.😕 It was Mexicans who were throwing the word around when I first heard it. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/128 "2010-11-23T22:05:30Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Where do people get on? Anywhere along the route. They just kinda flag it down. And yes, it made no sense to see folks hanging out on the road. I thought they were all waiting for a friend! ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/129 "2010-11-23T23:00:43Z")
> [@Rhiannon8404](#): > > Just the other week I learned that the small sea creature is an _anemone_ not an _anenome_. Reminds me. In my late twenties I found out that it is “remuneration” and not “renumeration”. I thought it was like “re-distribution of numbers”. :o ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/130 "2010-11-23T23:12:43Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Pssst. It’s “hep.” 😃 Whatever you say grandpa. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/131 "2010-11-24T01:06:27Z")
It was only this year that, courtesy of The Dope, I discovered that **nachos** is the plural of **nacho** and so is pronounced “natch-oze” not “na-choss”. So much for my years of ‘correcting’ people on this matter … ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/132 "2010-11-24T02:36:54Z")
This might be an interesting topic for somebody to start a thread about. Things that you corrected people on, but it turns out that you were the one that was wrong all along. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmundex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e19adc/32.png) [@Sigmundex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmundex)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/133 "2010-11-24T04:24:04Z")
Speaking of white/black surprises with singers, I was probably in my mid-30’s (I’m 43 now) before I realized that all that awesome singing in Pink Floyd’s ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’ is by a white woman named Clare Torry. Totally surprised me. She’s got soul. This is the song I’m talking about… [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM1Tp8ZtGXU) You’ll see a couple pictures of her in that video. ---
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/134 "2010-11-24T07:23:02Z")
Years ago I was watching a football game and a player was described as a former pro bowler. How nice, I thought. In addition to being a professional football player he also bowls competitively. I wonder how much money a professional bowler makes… For the non-football fans here, the Pro Bowl is a sort of all-star game played after the end of the season, and the players in it appear by invitation only. So it’s an holnor. Has nothing to do with bowling. As if that wasn’t bad enough, when I was a kid there was an annual charity event held at the LA coliseum. As I recall, eight local high school teams played each other for one quarter each. The event was called The Milk Bowl, with the money raised going to buy milk for needy school kids. My next-door neighbor, Johnny, who was a year older than I was and Knew Everything managed to keep a straight face when I asked him if a real bowl of milk was used in the game. He assured me it was used until all the milk was spilled out of it, and then a regular football was substituted. Well, this sounded doubtful, but I was not about to challenge a guy who Knew Everything. Johnny, if you are out there and reading this…you never fooled me for a second! A bowl of milk indeed! ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/135 "2010-11-24T07:32:18Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > It was only this year that, courtesy of The Dope, I discovered that **nachos** is the plural of **nacho** and so is pronounced “natch-oze” not “na-choss”. So much for my years of ‘correcting’ people on this matter … … I would pronounce it na-chos, and in the singular na-cho… you guys don’t pronounce the o in the singular? Or would you separate the syllables in the singular as nach-o, much like these two gay coworkers of mine would call each other macho pronouncing it much-oh instead of mah-cho? I’m confused ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/136 "2010-11-24T07:45:14Z")
I would say naw-cho and naw-chos. Like you’re disagreeing with margeret cho and her clones. ---
**Author:** ![GESancMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gesancman/32/2923_2.png) [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/137 "2010-11-24T08:31:57Z")
> [@Sigmundex](#): > > Speaking of white/black surprises with singers, I was probably in my mid-30’s (I’m 43 now) before I realized that all that awesome singing in Pink Floyd’s ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’ is by a white woman named Clare Torry. Totally surprised me. She’s got soul. This is the song I’m talking about… > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM1Tp8ZtGXU&feature=related](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM1Tp8ZtGXU&feature=related) > > You’ll see a couple pictures of her in that video. Yeah, it wasn’t until my late 30s that I found out that chick is white… …about five seconds ago. ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/138 "2010-11-24T12:59:02Z")
I think I must have been about 25 when I learned that black, white and green pepper are all the same fruit, which is actually red. Botany just doesn’t make any damn sense. ---
**Author:** ![put\_down\_the\_sabre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/da6949/32.png) [@put\_down\_the\_sabre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/put_down_the_sabre)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/139 "2010-11-24T13:40:56Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > In Australia and the UK, the “toilet” is the room; in the US, it’s the fixture _in_ the room. [This has caused some minor confusion.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=522728) This isn’t quite right. In the UK at least, ‘toilet’ can refer to the room (‘she’s in the toilet’) but it can also refer to the fixture: ‘he’s on the toilet’, ‘I dropped something down the toilet’, ‘I’m just fixing the toilet’ all make perfect sense, and all clearly mean the fixture. pdts ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206/140 "2010-11-24T13:58:55Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > It was only this year that, courtesy of The Dope, I discovered that **nachos** is the plural of **nacho** and so is pronounced “natch-oze” not “na-choss”. So much for my years of ‘correcting’ people on this matter … Wait—“natch” to rhyme with “catch” or “snatch”?? > [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I would say naw-cho and naw-chos. Like you’re disagreeing with margeret cho and her clones. Do you really pronounce the w? Like to rhyme with “saw” or “thaw”? > [@Nava](#): > > … I would pronounce it na-chos So would I. The way Beavis and Butt-head pronounce it (see, for example, [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkgatSpF7yA), about 55 seconds in). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-you-were-embarrassed-that-you-didnt-know/561206.md?page=8)