No, that’s what we’re talking about. Some people pronounce the candy, caramel, as ‘carmil’, which is different from the California town Carmel, pronounced car-mel.
Another one here who always thought the Washington Redskins were in Washington state. It’s one of those things that I have to keep relearning, too.
It wasn’t until I was 19 and began working in a pharmacy that 'I found out chiggers were a real thing. Sure enough, we had Chiggerex and other salves that promised relief from chigger bites. I always thought it was a cutesy folk name for ticks or something, like “skeeters.” And at the same time, I discovered that a lot of products I’d read of in novels, like Carter’s Little Pills, “gripe water,” Goody’s headache powders, and 666, were real and not simply inventions of the authors.
I’m pretty sure a lot of people in my High School missed this as well.
Fortunately, this problem is now solved once and for all.
I am guilty of the Redskins misunderstanding, and I am from bordering state Oregon so I really should have known better. I mean, I knew that Seattle had the Seahawks, and Washington isn’t a really populous state so there is no reason they would have 2 teams. I just never thought much about it. And coming from the PNW, you just get used to associating the word Washington with the state, not the capital. I finally learned it within a year or two ago. To be fair, I’m really not a big football fan.
I think now that others have mentioned it, when I was a young kid, I was also briefly under the impression that sex always resulted in a baby, and was similarly confused when people were surprised to find out they were pregnant. But that thankfully ended before I reached high school or possibly even middle school.
The sherbet thing is something I only recently learned I think, and I’m a young adult now so I think that counts.
?
Armish?
Ramish?
Amirsh?
Amisher?
Exactly how did you think it was pronounced?
If you’ve ever met anyone from Maine, this is easy to figure out.
I finally remembered one of mine.
When I was young, an episode of “Superfriends” or “The Justice League” or something showed Batman in an airplane, using what a narrator told us were “mathematically proven methods of triangulation” to find some criminal.
I was sure that was a made-up bit of impossible tech.
A little help for those of us who apparently haven’t?
It’s the non-rhotic New England accent in which the word “Armish” would sound identical to Amish.
Steven Wright said when he was a kid he thought Hoss Cartwright was actually named Horse, for this exact reason. Wright is from Boston.
The mind boggles.
But. Isn’t hoss just Old Western for horse? The character’s real first name was Eric (per wiki). I thought the nickname meant he was big and maybe a little slow.
Well, it really doesn’t matter what it represents, it has no “r” in it; however it’s easy for certain New Englanders to think it does.
Certain kids I knew growing up were convinced that Spock was actually “Spark.” I don’t know what accent Fred Flintstone had, but Barney was always “Bahney.”
There’s a dead guy in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer who was known as “Hoss Williams” when he was alive, although when Tom and Huck are lying up in the graveyard (and shortly before witnessing a murder) they refer to “Hoss Williams” and are shortly afterwards remorseful to have spoken disrespectfully of the dead. Later, when the murder trial takes place, the judge (or counsel for the defence, as it may have been) pronounces Williams’s name as “Horse Williams”, so the reader is free to doubt that it was a nickname. 
Brooklyn. Where Jackie Gleason grew up.
That Led Zeppelin was singing about an actual historical event in “When the Levee Breaks.” I had to buy a couple books on the 1927 Mississippi flood to explain the situation.
Also, that swastikas were considered good luck symbols out in NM, at least until 1932.
http://southwestcompass.com/2012/12/swastika-symbol-in-new-mexico/
I thought the phrase “turn on” was a figure of speech for actually getting excited about something, instead of the… other ‘exited’ it suggests. I would say it around adults and they would say, “Don’t say that, you’re too young!” I was so confused.
I was an adult (in my thirties) before I found out the Giants were both a football and a baseball team. I just had (and have) zero interest in any sports. Stuff would come on the radio or TV and I’d just zone it out.
Why there’s not a basketball team called the Giants, seems a missed PR opportunity.
I didn’t know until embarrassingly late that green and red bell peppers were the same thing, only harvested at different times.