# Things you didn't know but everyone else did **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 12, 2003, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673 "2003-02-12T21:55:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![sidle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee59a6/32.png) [@sidle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sidle)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/21 "2003-02-13T02:14:48Z")
Based on responses to a thread I started today in IMHO, everyone except me knew not to look at the welders and why. ---
**Author:** ![Greywolf73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d9b06d/32.png) [@Greywolf73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greywolf73)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/22 "2003-02-13T03:50:30Z")
In the ER one night while I was pregnant with my son, I had to have blood drawn. Afterwards, my arm began to bleed around the edge of the bandaid. My husband very helpfully asked me if I needed a “gau” to clean it up. A gau? I had no idea what he was talking about until he handed me a piece of gauze. Yes, my husband thought gau was the singular form of gauze. I…umm…can’t think of any about myself. 😉 Okay, maybe one…until very recently, I didn’t realize that toasters had a removable “crumb catcher”. I found out by accident while moving the toaster one morning and knocked it open. Imagine my surprise when 4 years worth of breadcrumbs came pouring out! ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/23 "2003-02-13T04:17:13Z")
I just now found out, from this very MB, that the universe is _NOT_ Geocentric. Imagine my surprise! I also didn’t realise my ass is as big as it is. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![BadBaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/71c47a/32.png) [@BadBaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BadBaby)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/24 "2003-02-13T04:28:42Z")
Greywolf, you stole mine! With me it was a toaster oven and I’d spent the better part of an hour trying to clean the dern thing when I managed to pop open the little trap door. Also, my sister referred to a single stocking as a ‘panty ho’ and had never considered that wasn’t the right word. ---
**Author:** ![liirogue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dbc845/32.png) [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/25 "2003-02-13T04:32:35Z")
Hehehe, oh my little sis would kill me if she knew I was posting this… But the temptation is just too great 😃 You know that song that Christina whats-her-face and all those others did called “Lady Marmalade”? Well, my uncle was asking me what “Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir” meant (since I had had French in school), and my sister indignantly replied “Duh you guys, it’s not French, it’s _Spanish_!” It took us two or three minutes to convince her otherwise! So now my uncle always sings “Voulex vous coucher avec moi, _senor_” I can’t do the little dealy over the “n” but you get what I mean. Hehehe… we still laugh about this one. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/26 "2003-02-13T04:40:00Z")
ñ Ñ [Instructions](http://home.earthlink.net/~awinkelried/keyboard_shortcuts.html) ---
**Author:** ![Soup\_du\_jour](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Soup\_du\_jour](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soup_du_jour)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/27 "2003-02-13T07:20:46Z")
Perhaps I’ve said this before somewhere else. I just learned about a year ago that Elton John is gay. I guess it was just one of those things that everyone assumes everyone else knows, but nobody tells anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/28 "2003-02-13T12:00:44Z")
> [@](#): > > I didn’t know that you couldn’t remove the fabric coverings from couch cushions and put them in the washing machine for cleaning. I beg to differ, having actually done it. We did remember to put the machine on COLD, though. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/29 "2003-02-13T13:26:07Z")
I had a boyfriend in high school who didn’t know women went through menopause. He thought we had periods until we died. I pointed out to him that you don’t see a lot of 80 year old mothers. Funny thing was, he had three sisters. ---
**Author:** ![pingalondon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/67e7ee/32.png) [@pingalondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pingalondon)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/30 "2003-02-13T13:52:38Z")
This one isn’t about me, but my usually amazingly intelligent partner (who sometimes posts on here so I must be careful…). Until he was at University, he thought the air guitar was a REAL instrument. He only worked it out when someone started playing along on the air drums! ---
**Author:** ![Legomancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/779978/32.png) [@Legomancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legomancer)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/31 "2003-02-13T14:24:41Z")
To this day, despite having lived in University towns a lot, there’s still a lot of drinking-related lingo that I don’t know. I see things advertised all the time like “call brands” and have no idea what they mean. I’ve never been much of a drinker. ---
**Author:** ![carlotta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@carlotta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlotta)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/32 "2003-02-13T14:48:40Z")
well, the number of things I didn’t know that other people did is vast. The clue bus never stops in my neighborhood. Here is just one example: I had no idea until I actually bought a car (age 19) that cars needed to be “registered” or that you paid something called “personal property tax” on them. ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/33 "2003-02-13T15:02:45Z")
I never knew until another Doper told me LAST YEAR that Passover and Easter aren’t just coincidentally around the same time. I didn’t know that the last supper was a passover seder! I was in my thirties before I realized that the written word “segue” was the verbal word I’d been hearing. There are a lot of things I was clueless about–just can’t recall more right now. ---
**Author:** ![Ego\_Mk2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/58956e/32.png) [@Ego\_Mk2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ego_Mk2)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/34 "2003-02-13T16:32:03Z")
MY whole life I never knew what biscuit gravy was until I told my bro-in-law about this weird white spicy sausage soup I had at Thanksgiving in college. ---
**Author:** ![cowgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cowgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cowgirl)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/35 "2003-02-13T17:13:53Z")
About five years ago I had a friend whose boyfriend worked for Microsoft. And I had to do a school project with her, and noticed that when she wanted to open a document on her computer, she would save the changes and close the one she was working on, open the new one, then close it and re-open the original one. She didn’t know that you could have more than one document open at once! I asked her just what she thought ‘Windows’ meant … ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/36 "2003-02-13T17:23:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CrankyAsAnOldMan \* > **I was in my thirties before I realized that the written word “segue” was the verbal word I’d been hearing.** I had a lot of those – I was a voracious reader, but didn’t get a chance to use these words in conversation. So I was humiliated over _epitome_, which I had been loftily pronouncing eh-PI-tome, and _ennui_, which I was offering as en-YOU-eye. Both of those were high-school moments I’d rather forget. - Rick ---
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/37 "2003-02-13T17:49:18Z")
I had not a clue about how to do things like Ø, ä, or ® until NoClueBoy’s fine post. No longer will I have to mutter to myself when posting, “Yeah, my writing doesn’t need those cutesy thingies. Yeah, that’s why I don’t use them.” Signed: ƒ\_ÇÉ»±§ ---
**Author:** ![lindsay.reid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@lindsay.reid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lindsay.reid)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/38 "2003-02-13T18:01:10Z")
I had a boyfriend in high school who was valedictorian of his class. Yet he (at age 18) didn’t know the difference between a dress and a skirt. He thought “dress” just meant it was long and a “skirt” referred to everything above the knee. ---
**Author:** ![panache](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c77e96/32.png) [@panache](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/39 "2003-02-13T18:01:18Z")
**Bricker** , I feel ya- My mom was the one who caught me sometime around age 12 discussing how one of the heroines in my latest novel had been “mizzled” (misled)…I was floored, I knew that “miss-led” was a word too, it had just never occured to me that the similarity in meaning indicated a certain…relationship. She still laughs at me sometimes. Sigh, the curse of being young and well-read. ---
**Author:** ![B.Pants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a87d85/32.png) [@B.Pants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Pants)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673/40 "2003-02-13T18:05:38Z")
There’s an old joke: Pete and Repete were in a boat. Pete fell out. Who was left? Repete, of course. Pete and Repete… As a child, I loved that joke. I thought the humor came from being asked who was left, when it was _so obvious_ who was left. I would tell it with either boy falling out. I didn’t get it until I was 15. Repete? Repeat? Ah ha ha ha! I felt more than a little stupid. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-know-but-everyone-else-did/154673.md?page=3)