Stupid stuff you once didn’t know… or still don’t know.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Years ago, my later years of high school to be exact, I didn’t know my months. I had a rough idea of what came next and why, but when push came to shove, I’d have to look at a calendar to make sure.

Maybe I was sick that day they covered it in school. Maybe I was just having fun with my friends and didn’t pay attention to the teacher. Whatever the case may have been, I simply didn’t know.

Nobody around me knew or cared that I didn’t know my months. I was able to get by just fine not knowing. In fact, I still wouldn’t know if it hadn’t been for a very unfortunate trip to the local store one day.

Kind Lady behind the counter: “That’ll be ten-fifty, please.”

Me: “Sure. ::grabbing my checkbook:: Can I use your pen.”

Kind lady: “Here ya go.”

Me: “Ahh, what’s the date today?”

Kind Lady: “It’s the sixteenth.”

Me: “Umm. No. I mean what month is it?”

Kind Lady: “Oh. Sorry. Were in October now.”

Me: ::leaning into the kind woman and getting quieter:: “Actually, what number is that. I’m writing a check?”

I really don’t remember what was said after that. Maybe it was the look she gave me, or maybe the way she leaned away from me, or it could have been her sending my check through the validation machine twice that did it, but I was humiliated.

I sat down that night and studied the calendar. I was never going to feel that way again.

So, share with me. What stupid thing did you once not know, or you still don’t know?

2

I spent a long time arguing with people that ‘hello’ was spelt differently. I just didn’t believe that a word people used all the time would have Hell in it. Since then, I have been to Hell (just passed through it on a holiday) and it wasn’t so bad. I recommend going in summer.

I also didn’t know where Tampons went, despite the fact that in health class learning about menstrual cycles and seeing a demonstration of how much liquid a tampon can soak up (200 mL). I thought they were a portable mop type device. I was a very näive child.

3

Actually, I’m just really bad on pronouncing certain words. I grew up reading much more than I spoke, and I learned words by reading them. I notice when I’m playing Trivial Pursuit that although I know what words mean, I often can’t pronounce them. It’s embarrassing.

4

My husband has had the same problem with months and their numbers. He’s gotten better since he became a computer nerd and has to type code.

I don’t understand why, but I have a lot of trouble reading clocks and telling right from left. Why someone didn’t quiz me on this before I got out of elementary school is beyond me.

5

I can’t do division, even on paper. I’ve learned several times, and it keeps floating out of my head. I also can’t multiply if both numbers have more than one digit.

It took me a long time to realise that California and Florida are not on the same coast.

6

I’ve often fallen prey to the old left/right problem. Then the girl I was dating at the time showed me that if you hold up the index finger and stick the thumb out on your left hand, it makes an “L”. I stopped dating her soon after.

7

I’m embarrassed to say that I’m almost 28 years old and still have to stop and think about left and right. But judging from this thread, it looks like I’m in good company.

8

I recently hit 30 and I still don’t know how to whistle.

9

I have a hard time resisting goodies. I’ll walk by my work’s kitchen and since they have free sodas of every imaginable kind I always grab one. I tell myself “no, don’t do that! you’re going to feel like shit while driving home when you come down from the sugar!” but I still do. Even when I curse myself as I open the door I can’t stop myself.

How silly is that?!

10

I don’t think I’ve ever admitted this publicly, but I can’t lace up shoes. I’m talking about when you buy tennis shoes and the laces come NOT in the shoes. I don’t know - the whole over/under/skip the hole thing just eludes me.

The last time I tried was in Chicago about five years ago. I had just bought a new pair of tennies, and my dad was waiting for me to lace them up so we could leave. After standing and silently laughing at me for a few minutes, he took over. I believe his comment was “and you’re the smartest kid I have”…

I think if I tried again and actually had some patience, I could do it. I really have no desire to try.

11

I know the feeling. That happens to me a lot more than I’d like to admit. The worst is when I have to quote something from a book in class and I realize that I don’t know how to pronounce the next word but everyone else in the room does.

I had to prepare an argument for a case last week and I realized I didn’t know how to pronounce one of the terms. Since I felt stupid asking anyone, I just wrote my notes using a different word (I hope I don’t forget and start reading from the text). I really wish my legal dictionary had pronunciations in it.

12

I swear, every time I write a check for an amount between $40 and $49, I have to look up how to spell “forty.” I keep wanting to spell it “fourty.”

13

the pitfalls of being a precocious reader

When I was in grade school I very much enjoyed the sf short story collection by (I think; it’s been a while) Larry Niven titled All The Myriad Ways. I’m sure my enthusiastic reviews would have been more effective had I not pronounced the word “myriad” with a long i and the accent on the second syllable.

My husband, as a young reader, believed the word “misled” to be the past tense of the verb “to misle.”

My sister, an intelligent woman (a veterinarian, even) did not learn to tell time until she was 14. Somehow, she never learned when she was little. Eventually it got to the point where it was too embarrassing to ask for help, so she faked it for several years before being caught and forced to learn.

14

Did I date you, Tommy? This was the only way I could remember which was which for years.

I also used to fall prey to the word pronunciation problem.

Which word, ladybug? I’m sitting in an office with a copy of Black’s Law Dictionary by my side.

15

I’m another early reader and taught myself to sound things out, one paragraph at a time. I was reading aloud to my Mother once when she realized that one of my characters was
“Step-hen”. Took her several minutes to get Stephen out of it!

16

I’ve never seen The Simpsons (still haven’t) and I thought for years that they were supposed to be a family of human-like ducks. C’mon, doesn’t Homer look like a duck? What’s that bill-shaped thing on his face - is it really supposed to be stubble or something? I’m still not entirely convinced that they’re not a duck family.

I didn’t learn long division until the 9th grade. I was out in elementary school when it was taught, and I just never learned it. It was my algebra teacher who caught on that something was amiss and he taught me.

17

I’m another one with problems with left/right. See, the way I figure it out is that, I know I’m right-handed, so if someone mentions “the picture on the left” I pinch my right fingers together like I’m holding a pencil, and then I know left is in the opposite direction.

I also have trouble with the alphabet. Oh, I know the alphabet, I know all the letters and the sounds they make, I just can’t readily rememeber which order they go in. If I need to now which comes first H or K, I have to sing the alphabet song in my head. I was so disappointed when I got to jr. high school when they didn’t have the alphabet pasted across the wall above the chalkboard.

Also, I am completely dense to ethnic things. There are a couple of people I’d known since I was six, who had dark skin and hair, and last names like “Cases” and “Oliveres” and it didn’t dawn on me until high school that they just might be hispanic. Duh. Just last year I realized a Boston accent and and Irish accent are pretty darn similar. I have convorsations all the time that include soemthing like “You’re Indian? Really? I had no idea…”

18

I know nothing about poetry construction. Couldn’t tell an iambic pentameter from a dactylic somethingorother (those are terms I’ve heard, but I have no clue to their meaning). Yeah, we studied poetry in school, but went more for the meaning than the actual construction. Maybe that’s why I get so confused with Shakespeare, much as I like it.

Anyone got any suggestions for poetry textbooks with good examples? :frowning:

19

Sometimes I don’t know how old I am - I have to think about what year it is and do the math.

I was not Y2K ready. When 2000 came around, several times I wrote 1998 on my checks.

I used to get left and right confused until 8th grade. Once I got in an argument with a teacher about it.

When I was a kid, I thought wall-to-wall carpeting meant that the carpeting was actually on the walls.

20

When I was 11 years old, my dad went to the doctor to get “snipped.” I thought they cut everything off. A few years later I came to the (false) realization that it was probably just his testicles that were “snipped.” Not until my mid 20’s, when I dated a man who had been fixed, did I learn that nothing was actually cut off. Ouch!