# Things you're shocked to find out some people don't know. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 10, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353 "2010-01-10T02:44:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/181 "2010-01-11T21:59:45Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > Well if you had asked me about oral sex 25 odd years ago you would have got an interesting story - and probably a good giggle Same here! But instead of a good giggle, you’d probably just get arrested, because I would have been six years old. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/182 "2010-01-11T22:02:45Z")
> [@MitzeKatze](#): > > Once I had to argue with my husband’s ex-wife who called at 7PM her time that yes my husband was at work because it was 10 AM the next day in our time and I wasn’t just making that up so that he could avoid talking to her. 🙂 I once commented to my sister that it gets dark so much earlier where I live than where she did. She didn’t believe that that was possible. I explained to her that since I live a few hundred miles east of her, and since the earth spins, that it’s very possible. “Oh yeah? If that’s true, then it would get dark a lot later in, say, California. Explain that, Mr. Smart Pants.” I then spent a good long while explaining the concept of time zones to her. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/183 "2010-01-11T22:05:10Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > Just yesterday I stood in the Grocery Store line and looked at the covers of the gossip magazines and recognized NOONE. I’m not at all surprised to hear that. Herman’s Hermits was a great group and [Peter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Noone), as their lead singer, was quite famous. ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/184 "2010-01-11T22:14:43Z")
**Chefguy** ’s Velcro story reminded me of the other day when my roommate and I went to the local Walgreens to ask if they had cookie cutters. The staff member who helped us did not know what we meant until we explained. We went next door to the supermarket (which is sort of a high-end “gourmet” type supermarket), and the staff there also did not know what cookie cutters were. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/185 "2010-01-11T23:13:12Z")
> [@Kaio](#): > > Well, since you’re not in my head you really have no idea how refined my hearing is. I heard it in the previously-posted video. Of course it was very, very faint by rhotic standards. It was still there. It was not pronounced like “ass.” > > If it helps, you can think of the sound as more of a very slight “ooo” shaped schwa as the second sound of a dipthong. Goes by really fast, obviously not the same sound as a rhotic, but there nonetheless. > > Compare to the Boston accent which completely drops the R in “car”. I can’t hear it at all there. Ass is pronounced differently to arse, but there’s still no r sound in non-rhotic arse. (Heh, non-rhotic arse. :D) It’s a long ‘ah’ sound, written as a: in IPA (except that it’s not a colon, it’s two tiny triangles, but I don’t have it on my keyboard and can’t be arsed to look up the code for it). There is a tiny schwa sound, kinda, sometimes, but that’s just a function of long vowels - it’s not enough to be a dipthong and it’s not like an r. The same sound is in father and ask and all sorts of other words, but there’s no r. That tiny schwa is also in rhotic ‘arse,’ if you think about it, because the vowel is still a long vowel sound. FYI, there is no ooo shaped schwa; I know what you mean by that sound, but it’s not called a schwa. Often when my GF and I tell each other what we’ve been doing, the answer is ‘arsing about on the internet.’ Tonight that’s doubly true! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/186 "2010-01-11T23:25:01Z")
A friend of mine believed that there was an all-powerful all-seeing supernatural being, who had created the entire universe, but had a particular interest in the planet earth, and after creating all the living things on it, randomly guided or ignored them just to see what would happen. There was also some weird stuff about rewarding the good and punishing the bad, but that seemed arbitrary, so I’m not sure about that bit. It was in some book he read. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/187 "2010-01-12T00:04:27Z")
> [@Kaio](#): > > Call me crazy, but I can hear non-rhotic Rs. Granted they are just _barely_ there, but they are there nonetheless. It’s more just a slight closing of the lips, and not much in the way of tongue curl (although maybe just a tiny bit of tongue lift). Agreeing with **scifisam** here, and I have a direct anecdote to demonstrate this misconception - above and beyond the fact that “arse” and “glass” rhyme perfectly in my southern English non-rhotic accent. I have an ongoing argument with a couple of my Irish friends about the RP English pronunciation of the French car manufacturer “Peugeot”. In England, most people pronounce it to an anglicized approximation of the French pronunciation. Thus I pronounce it “PEUH-zho”. So my Irish friends (a doper and a former doper, you know who you are) ask me “why are you putting an R in there? You’re saying ‘PER-zho’.” I reply "I’m not. “PEUH” and “PER” are pronounced the same in my non-rhotic accent. “But it’s evident that I’m not pronouncing the R in a syllable where there is no R, because there’s no fecking R in the syllable; alas, to confuse matters, nor do I pronounce the R in a syllable where there is a trailing R. It’s an identical syllable when spoken, and I am not pronouncing an R in either of them.” (To which they go “but you ARE pronouncing the R” and I get exasperated and say “no I’m NOT, and at least I don’t say ‘PEW-joe’” - which is how it’s said in Ireland. Then we have a big shouting match and then we have another pint and all is well again.) ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/188 "2010-01-12T00:08:31Z")
Ooh **Kaio** another thing over here is the [Ford Ka](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ka). It is a pun: it sounds _exactly_ the same as the words “Ford car”. The pun simply wouldn’t work were there a distinguishable non-rhotic trailing R. ETA: my daft friend Lou, referenced upthread, owns one and calls it a “Ford K. A.” She was amazed when I told her about the intended pronunciation. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/189 "2010-01-12T00:13:26Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Somebody also missed out on the fact that overseas containers take several months to arrive. Did y’all think they would be airlifted? Well the other guy was a little dim, and I’d only worked at that facility for a few months by that time, all in the production area. I started in the shipping department the week before, and I’d never worked in a job that had anything to do with shipping or logistics. All my mental energy at that time was diverted in three basic directions, 1) Load the right materials and quantities onto the truck, 2) My coworker is a moron and 3) Damn it’s cold on this loading dock. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/190 "2010-01-12T00:21:44Z")
> [@](#): > > No it wouldn’t. If the Winter Solstice is counted as midwinter, then Winter starts at around the 11th of November and finishes in the first week of February. That’s taking the seasons as being defined by daylight hours rather than weather, because the weather can be so variable from year to year but daylight hours aren’t. It’s not a perfect way of categorising the seasons, but it doesn’t presume a Winter that includes both October and February. No it’s not – if you count Dec. 22 as the middle of a three-month winter then the beginning of winter must be a month and a half earlier – which pushes it into October. But even if you were right about Nov. 11 being the beginning of Winter, it’s still\* a longer period of time between the start of winter and the maximum cold in February than it is now – so people will still complain about a longer winter. And the spring will start earlier, so they can still complain about a colder spring. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/191 "2010-01-12T00:29:02Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > No you can’t. If I say ‘car’ or ‘warm’ there simply is no r sound at all. Not a slight closing of the lips, no tongue curl at all. The r lengthens the sound before it in those words, but in other words (like ‘brother’) it works with the vowel before it to make a schwa. There isn’t the tiniest trace of an r. > > A while ago I ended up researching when the seasons officially start, and it turns out there is no official answer for it, certainly not internationally. But I agree - I certainly wouldn’t think of the Winter Solstice as the _start_ of Winter. How can the whole of December be Autumn? TruCelt, whoever told you were a fool for not ‘knowing’ that was a little foolish themselves. > > I think of Winter as being December - January - February. Spring is the following 3 months, and so on. You can have Wintry weather outside those times, of course, but that division’s what makes best sense to me. I am probably an idiot, but how can you consider yourself talking properly when you do not pronounce words properly? I really do not know of any rule of grammer where R is considered silent. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/192 "2010-01-12T00:36:55Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > A while ago I ended up researching when the seasons officially start, and it turns out there is no official answer for it, certainly not internationally. But I agree - I certainly wouldn’t think of the Winter Solstice as the _start_ of Winter. How can the whole of December be Autumn? TruCelt, whoever told you were a fool for not ‘knowing’ that was a little foolish themselves. > > I think of Winter as being December - January - February. Spring is the following 3 months, and so on. You can have Wintry weather outside those times, of course, but that division’s what makes best sense to me. Well, you did the research, so maybe you know. But there is a standard international definition of astronomical seasons. (Meteorologists refer to meteorological seasons and they can indeed vary depending on latitude.) Defining the seasons strictly by weather can be faulty, too. Every now and then we get a couple of days in the 60’s or even 70’s (F) in January. Does that mean that we have winter, then a couple of days of spring, then back to winter again? ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/193 "2010-01-12T00:37:19Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > I am probably an idiot, but how can you consider yourself talking properly when you do not **pronounce words properly**? I really do not know of any rule of grammer where R is considered silent. Then most people in the USA in one way or another dont talk “properly”. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/194 "2010-01-12T00:47:33Z")
Ahem…I believe that would be, they don’t **speak** properly. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/195 "2010-01-12T01:06:49Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Then most people in the USA in one way or another dont talk “properly”. Well, yes, but I am shocked that you didn’t know that. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/196 "2010-01-12T01:27:42Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > No it’s not – if you count Dec. 22 as the middle of a three-month winter then the beginning of winter must be a month and a half earlier – which pushes it into October. > But even if you were right about Nov. 11 being the beginning of Winter, it’s still\* a longer period of time between the start of winter and the maximum cold in February than it is now – so people will still complain about a longer winter. And the spring will start earlier, so they can still complain about a colder spring. I counted back 6 weeks from December 21st (traditional solstice, though of course the real solstice varies) to get the November 11th date, then counted forward six weeks to get to the first week in Feb. I should have added a couple of days, but it still doesn’t get to October. Winter would be 13 weeks long, same as the other seasons, if you define a season by daylight hours rather than temperature. > [@aruvqan](#): > > I am probably an idiot, but how can you consider yourself talking properly when you do not pronounce words properly? I really do not know of any rule of grammer where R is considered silent. There are these things called ‘accents.’ You have one too. > [@CookingWithGas](#): > > Well, you did the research, so maybe you know. But there is a standard international definition of astronomical seasons. (Meteorologists refer to meteorological seasons and they can indeed vary depending on latitude.) > > Defining the seasons strictly by weather can be faulty, too. Every now and then we get a couple of days in the 60’s or even 70’s (F) in January. Does that mean that we have winter, then a couple of days of spring, then back to winter again? Are the astronomical seasons similar to the ones based around the solstices and equinoxes, or something else? Anyway, yeah, it was meteorological seasons that I think was in question here. Even when it comes to which plants grow when there’s no really good way of defining when Spring starts and Winter ends, not in a way that satisfies everyone. I wouldn’t really consider February to be Spring, either, but it’s also not the coldest month in my part of the world - London, England: [January is the coldest](http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/city_guides/results.shtml). Only one degree colder than February, but then there’s not an enormous variation in average temperature year-round. (Temperature is not an infallible guide - I mention it because of a reference by someone else to the ‘ultimate cold’ in February). One thing I’m certain of is that the winter solstice is not the beginning of winter. Even if you considered all of November to be Autumn that would still mean the solstice is three weeks in, unless you’re counting December as Autumn, which is crazy talk. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/197 "2010-01-12T01:44:45Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > There are people who don’t know that there’s a country called Austria. > > They want to go to Australia and visit the outback and see kangaroos. They go online, book their flights and hotels (“Gee, I didn’t know Vienna was in Australia.”). They arrive in Vienna, go to their hotel, check in, and get situated in their rooms. Then, on the way out, they ask the clerk how to get to the outback, and where’s the best place to see kangaroos. > > The desk clerk gives them one of these :rolleyes: and tells them how to get to Australia. I saw [this](http://picasaweb.google.com/mattmcl.montrealais/Vienna#5352120943623226994)in a souvenir shop in Vienna. (Of course I also saw an Australian pub in central Vienna - perhaps for this reason.) ---
**Author:** ![Bacon\_Salt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@Bacon\_Salt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bacon_Salt)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/198 "2010-01-12T01:46:50Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > A friend of mine believed that there was an all-powerful all-seeing supernatural being, who had created the entire universe, but had a particular interest in the planet earth, and after creating all the living things on it, randomly guided or ignored them just to see what would happen. There was also some weird stuff about rewarding the good and punishing the bad, but that seemed arbitrary, so I’m not sure about that bit. > > It was in some book he read. Could we… please… not go there? ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/199 "2010-01-12T03:00:03Z")
> [@Bacon\_Salt](#): > > Could we… please… not go there? The way to not go there is to treat my post as the joke it was intended as. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/200 "2010-01-12T03:17:53Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#): > > I, uh, didn’t learn this until I started playing Farmville on Facebook, and leveled up enough to grow pineapples. In our defense: most people won’t ever see a pineapple farm, they do kind of look like they could grow on a tree, and the name - pine is a type of tree, apples grow on trees, but…pineapples don’t grow on trees. I can understand that, NC. What kills me on Farmville was when they introduced harvesting your animals. When players first harvested their pigs (or selected ‘Collect Truffles’), there were so many people on the Farmville forum asking, “What part of the pig does the truffle come from?” I laughed for an hour. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353.md?page=11)