# Things You Learned/Figured Out At A Surprisingly Advanced Age
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 26, 2019, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249 "2019-02-26T17:07:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2019, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/61 "2019-03-01T14:31:31Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#):
>
> That’s okay. Used to work with someone who pronounced it “kah-SHAY” like a pseudo French word. Since we had a somewhat tech role, I had to hear “Have you cleared your kah-SHAY yet?” multiple times a day.
>
> _twitch_
There is a word pronounced like that, but it’s spelled “cachet”.
---
### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2019, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/62 "2019-03-01T14:39:24Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#):
>
> I think I learned something new just now. I use a compass for drawing maybe a few times a month. I usually always keep the pencil set at the same length as the pointer or maybe just a tad longer. It just occured to me today that it might be easier to adjust the compass so the pointer is straight up and down regardless of the size of the circle. Still not positive which way is correct?
Doesn’t matter. You can make a compass with a bit of thread, a pencil and a thumbtack, after all.
And I only understood your post thanks to having encountered American compasses as a grown-up. Those in Spain, France or Belgium don’t have a pencil: the “pencil” end is similar to a drill’s mouth: you open it, insert a piece of pencil lead and tighten it. In a lot of the basic models you can adjust the length of the pointer but not that of the lead’s side.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2019, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/63 "2019-03-01T15:16:11Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#):
>
> My Lab is smart. Great Danes are morons.
Although very cute and funny Pugs are the dumbest of dogs. IMO. I say this with a disclaimer, I have 2 of the dumbest dogs alive. Neither are Pugs.
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### Author:  [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2019, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/64 "2019-03-01T15:22:28Z")
> [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](#):
>
> Anyway, just last year I “got” the pun. That’s what, 45 years or so that I went around oblivious?
It took me 25 years to get a joke on _The Simpsons_.
Homer and Mo developed a drink that served _a flambé_, and they called it “The Flaming Meaux.” One night, two and a half decades later, I heard Will or Jack or someone on _Will & Grace_ call another gay character a “flaming 'mo” (short for “homo”), and I remembered that _Simpsons_ bit.
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2019, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/65 "2019-03-01T16:46:41Z")
I was in 7th grade PE, and we had a sex ed class. Reading the book taught me the mechanics by which the sperm and the egg got together. I knew that women gave birth, I knew about menstruation and all that but I was a late bloomer learning about intercourse. It made some scenes in books I had read a whole lot clearer.
Then I realized that my parents… I mean they actually _ **did** _ that…Ewwwww!
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2019, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/66 "2019-03-02T03:17:06Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#):
>
> It took me 25 years to get a joke on _The Simpsons_.
>
> Homer and Mo developed a drink that served _a flambé_, and they called it “The Flaming Meaux.” One night, two and a half decades later, I heard Will or Jack or someone on _Will & Grace_ call another gay character a “flaming 'mo” (short for “homo”), and I remembered that _Simpsons_ bit.
Actually, Homer invented it and called it the Flaming Homer (I trust that I needn’t belabor the point that the original name also fits the joke). It was when he showed Moe how to make it that Moe changed the name (and grabbed all the credit).
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### Author:  [@shh1313](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shh1313)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2019, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/67 "2019-03-02T05:19:39Z")
It’s taken me 56 years to understand that you can’t save people from themselves, and yet I’m still trying…
I’m not sure if that is worthy pursuit or a fool’s errand.
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### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2019, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/68 "2019-03-02T07:50:13Z")
I grew up as a horrible speller. I had taught myself how to read and really didn’t systematically put the connection between the sounds and letters. In middle school I simply started writing more sloppily so the teachers wouldn’t notice. It wasn’t until I got spellcheck that I learned how to spell.
Now one about my sister. In Salt Lake City, we lived near mountains, which were east of our house and since north is up, she thought that east was north.
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2019, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/69 "2019-03-02T08:35:06Z")
I’ve mentioned this here before, but I was about 40 when I finally figured out how northern hemisphere school years began and ended. Where I grew up the long break happened over Christmas, so the school year began in Jan/Feb and through to Nov/Dec, i.e matching the calendar year. Until I figured out how you American and Brits did it, I just thought there was a long break as a kind of rest (we used to have regular Term breaks that did the same thing), not actually as an end to the academic year.
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### Author:  [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2019, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/70 "2019-03-02T17:44:07Z")
> [@shh1313](#):
>
> It’s taken me 56 years to understand that you can’t save people from themselves, and yet I’m still trying…
>
> I’m not sure if that is worthy pursuit or a fool’s errand.
I know the feeling. Some of my relatives are intractable; it’s so frustrating to deal with. People were always telling me “you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help them-self” but it took years for me to accept that fact about certain relatives of mine.
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### Author:  [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2019, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/71 "2019-03-02T17:57:46Z")
Up until I was 30 I thought the Earth’s axis oscillated back and forth, and that’s the reason we have winter and summer. My coworker finally set me straight. Using a basketball as a model of the Earth, he tilted the ball’s axis at a _constant angle_, and then walked around a light bulb. It made sense. Felt like a big idiot. :smack:
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### Author:  [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2019, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/72 "2019-03-02T19:38:58Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#):
>
> Now one about my sister. In Salt Lake City, we lived near mountains, which were east of our house and since north is up, she thought that east was north.
On that tack: I once worked with a woman, aged 50-odd, who claimed – with seeming total conviction – that the direction “north” was whichever way you were facing at the time: the cardinal points changed / switched / swivelled around, governed by the direction in which you happened to face. She was in most respects an intelligent, educated person (though rather odd in a number of ways): we felt it to be overwhelmingly probable that she was just “yanking our chains” with this compass-points thing – but she told us it with such a straight face and apparent certainty, that we couldn’t totally rule out her sincerely believing this stuff to be true.
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### Author:  [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2019, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/73 "2019-03-02T19:50:39Z")
> [@pohjonen](#):
>
> I was rather far into my 30s before I realized that odd and even addresses were on opposite sides of the street.
>
> Stop laughing.
There is a highway near me that changes names three times during a ten mile stretch. Each time the name changes the odd and even numbers change sides. Annoying to say the least.
I drove a cab for a couple of years and was convinced that the faster I drove the more money I’d make. It took me nearly ten years to realize that I would have probably saved more money driving the speed limit, rather that spending money on tickets and insurance.
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2019, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/74 "2019-03-02T21:06:52Z")
I mispronounced audacity software for several years.
Since it edits audio, I pronounced it audio-city.
No one corrected me for a long time.
The noun audacity isn’t a word that I ever use in conversation and it has no connection at all to the function of the software. But, that’s how it’s pronounced.
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### Author:  [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2019, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/75 "2019-03-02T21:11:12Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#):
>
> I was a teenager before I realized that you could just not believe in God. And It’s not like a had a super religious family or anything. I just didn’t know that was an option.
For me it was the opposite: I went to Catholic school but all the while thought the Bible was obviously just a bunch of myths and poetry that no-one would think was literal.
I vividly remember the moment when another student asked me, incredulously “You don’t believe in _evolution_, do you?”, and in an instant, just from him asking me that question, I realized that people actually take this shit seriously.
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2019, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/76 "2019-03-02T21:20:44Z")
I could not tell right from left until I had an operation to remove a cyst from my left wrist when I was 10.
Two decades later, I learned the trick of pointing out your thumbs and raising the first fingers on each hand. The one that makes a “L” is Left.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2019, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/77 "2019-03-02T23:35:14Z")
> [@Baker](#):
>
> I was in 7th grade PE, and we had a sex ed class. Reading the book taught me the mechanics by which the sperm and the egg got together. I knew that women gave birth, I knew about menstruation and all that but I was a late bloomer learning about intercourse. It made some scenes in books I had read a whole lot clearer.
>
> Then I realized that my parents… I mean they actually _ **did** _ that…Ewwwww!
We had that class in 6th grade. I was the kid who raised his hand and asked, “But how does the sperm get from the man’s body to the woman’s egg?” I don’t think the teacher ever answered that question.
---
### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2019, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/78 "2019-03-03T01:57:38Z")
Things I wish I’d known decades earlier:
“Truffles” are simply a kind of confection- they don’t have the expensive gourmet fungus as an ingredient.
To get plastic bowls, cups and containers squeaky clean, rub liquid dish soap directly on them thoroughly then rinse.
Those two little tabs on one end of a Swiss Army knife are tweezers and a plastic pick.
Every empty large cat litter bag is a waterproof, sturdy and disposable pan liner.
Get all screws and bolts in place first before tightening any of them.
Telephone cords (remember those?) can be untangled by untwisting them.
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2019, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/79 "2019-03-03T02:18:15Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#):
>
> Two decades later, I learned the trick of pointing out your thumbs and raising the first fingers on each hand. The one that makes a “L” is Left.
The thing is though, if you are truly “left-right blind”, then you can’t distinguish an “L” from its mirror image, you don’t know if the horizontal line on the “L” extends to the right or left of the vertical line. Every way that humans use to distinguish left from right in everyday life is by reference to something else where the knowledge is assumed.
There’s a well known problem: if we could communicate remotely with aliens who are so far away that we have no shared context (we can’t see the same constellations or galaxies), and we know that they have words for right and left, how could we figure out which is which?
---
### Author:  [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2019, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/80 "2019-03-03T02:30:41Z")
I was about 60 years old when I learned that almost all boxes of aluminum foil and plastic wrap have little perforated tabs on each end of the box that you can push in to hold the roll in place.
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