# 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:** 18
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/341 "2010-01-20T17:07:33Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > The Baptist Church on Tremont Street in Boston is the Tremont Temple: > > [http://www.tremonttemple.com/](http://www.tremonttemple.com/) > > The Seventh Day Adventists in Boston have a Temple, too. > > [http://www.bostontemple-sda.org/](http://www.bostontemple-sda.org/) > So do the Mormons (out in Belmont, actually), but that’s their standard terminology. I’m not disputing that some protestants use the word temple. Obviously Kobal’s denomination does. But it’s wrong to say ‘protestants say temple’ unless all the major denominations do. The Anglican Church doesn’t, and that’s a pretty big part of Protestantism. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/342 "2010-01-20T17:14:58Z")
Hmm, funnily enough, Wiki claims that Anglicanism isn’t Protestant. That’ll come as a surprise to every single Anglican in the UK, especially those in Northern Ireland where being a protestant or not is rather a big deal. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/343 "2010-01-20T17:18:52Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > Hmm, funnily enough, Wiki claims that Anglicanism isn’t Protestant. That’ll come as a surprise to every single Anglican in the UK, especially those in Northern Ireland where being a protestant or not is rather a big deal. Well, define “Protestant”. If you define it as the churches that left the Catholic Church as part of the Protestant Reformation, Anglicanism doesn’t qualify. They separated later over their own set of issues. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/344 "2010-01-20T17:24:41Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > Well, define “Protestant”. If you define it as the churches that left the Catholic Church as part of the Protestant Reformation, Anglicanism doesn’t qualify. They separated later over their own set of issues. Given that people in Northern Ireland have _died_ for being Protestant, it’d be a but supercillious to say ‘actually, you’re wrong about your own religion - you’re not protestant at all!’ Of course, Baptists and Seven-Day Adventists don’t count under that definition either. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/345 "2010-01-20T17:36:32Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > Given that people in Northern Ireland have _died_ for being Protestant, it’d be a but supercillious to say ‘actually, you’re wrong about your own religion - you’re not protestant at all!’ They’re using a different definition of Protestant than Wiki is. I think their definition is something like “a Christian church that is not Catholic or Orthodox”. That definition gets used in the US, too- most of us would probably say Episcopalians are Protestants. ---
**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 20, 2010, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/346 "2010-01-20T17:36:40Z")
> [@smaje1](#): > > The diabetes health care I’ve received from non-diabetes-specialists is disheartening. I’ve met nurses and doctors alike who didn’t know the difference between type 1 and type 2. > Good luck with your studies! I think nursing is a wonderful profession, and I’m amazed by those who dedicate their lives to medicine. I feel for you deeply … Next time, get sick and use Yale New Haven hospital … the nursing staff there is fantastic when it comes to diabetes. I got tested half an hour after I got back to my room after surgery, and before and after eating at the right intervals, and corrections made with snacks and insulin as needed for my entire stay. The nutritionists on staff created a food service menu that is better than a lot of restaurants, so I could manage to eat properly [and the food was GOOD] so I didn’t have any of the swings that I had in the Navy hospital previously. And I second the applause for nursing students! And nursing teachers, and nurses =) ---
**Author:** ![Rack-a-Bones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rack-a-Bones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rack-a-Bones)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/347 "2010-01-20T17:46:28Z")
> [@interface2x](#): > > So how often do people there say “I live there, but it’s not my fault!” ? Not sure about that but they used to sell a bumper sticker at the local soda fountain that said “San Andreas, it’s not our fault!” ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/348 "2010-01-20T18:01:42Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > She [Joan of Arc] was burned as a _heretic_, by people who hated her guts in any case. Preserving her ashes in a church probably wasn’t high on the list of priorities 😉 Except that some bits of her do survive. [Or, then again, not](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070404-joan-arc.html). But the idea that somewhere in France might preserve what was claimed to be her relics wasn’t absurd at all. [QUOTE=scifisam2009] …I’ve never come across the word temple when reading about Huguenots. [/QUOTE] Not even references to [the ‘Temple’ at Charenton](http://www.crommelin.org/history/Ancestors/Scheffer/Charenton/Charenton.htm), the most famous of all the Huguenot sites in France? [QUOTE=vivalostwages] Julius Caesar was a Greek God. [/QUOTE] Of course, Julius Caesar was a Roman god. ---
**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 20, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/349 "2010-01-20T18:46:39Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > That’s interesting. I’m protestant by background too, and we _always_ say church, not temple. ‘Protestants call it temple’ isn’t true without the French bit. Are you sure it’s true for all kinds of French protestantism, even? There’s a French protestant church in central London, too, and that says ‘church’ outside, not temple, and I’ve never come across the word temple when reading about Huguenots Yes, in France, _temple_ can mean Protestant church, although I don’t think it’s wrong to call it an _église_. (I’ve never heard anyone call a Protestant church in Canada a _temple_ instead of an _église_, but I imagine that’s because there are proportionally so many more than in France, even in Quebec.) Also, I suppose the French Protestant church in London you referred to didn’t use the word “temple” because the sign was in English. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/350 "2010-01-20T18:47:22Z")
Is the word in French actually _temple?_ ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/351 "2010-01-20T18:48:20Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > Given that people in Northern Ireland have _died_ for being Protestant, it’d be a but supercillious to say ‘actually, you’re wrong about your own religion - you’re not protestant at all!’ People have been killed for being Jewish. That doesn’t stop there from being several definitions of who, exactly, is Jewish. Someone could have been considered Jewish under the Nuremberg Laws, with all the persecution that would imply, but not be considered Jewish by Orthodox or Conservative Judaism (if their maternal grandmother was not Jewish, but their other three grandparents were). ---
**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 20, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/352 "2010-01-20T19:03:58Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Is the word in French actually _temple?_ **TEMPLE** [tãpl] _n.m._ … **2.** … (1535) Édifice où les protestants célèbrent leur culte. _Aller au temple. Pasteur «nommé au temple de l’Oratoire »_ (Chardonne). - _Le Petit Robert_ ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/353 "2010-01-20T19:18:37Z")
What’s the French word for a non-Christian house of worship, then? Never really came up at school - it was always _eglise_ this and that. ---
**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 20, 2010, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/354 "2010-01-20T19:43:48Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > What’s the French word for a non-Christian house of worship, then? Never really came up at school - it was always _eglise_ this and that. _Temple_ (or _pagode, mosquée, synagogue,_ etc.) I should point out that another prominent use of the word _temple_ was in reference to the churches of the Templars. ---
**Author:** ![Tikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@Tikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tikki)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/355 "2010-01-20T20:03:54Z")
I know someone who constantly complains about not feeling well, despite assertations from her various doctors that she is just fine. You know the type. One of her most common complaints is that she’s always tired (thus, she spends most days in bed, eating and watching television.) She was on a kick for a while of filling bottles water and refrigerating them to drink later. One day at the coffee shop with a tableful of us as witnesses, she said, “Maybe the reason why I’m tired all the time is because my water doesn’t have enough oxygen in it.” Oh, yeah. It’s really fun teaching basic science to someone 20 years older than me. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/356 "2010-01-20T20:09:38Z")
> [@Tikki](#): > > One day at the coffee shop with a tableful of us as witnesses, she said, “Maybe the reason why I’m tired all the time is because my water doesn’t have enough oxygen in it.” Is she trying to breathe the water, instead of drinking it? I could see how several near-drownings a day could tire someone out. ---
**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 20, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/357 "2010-01-20T20:14:31Z")
> [@Tikki](#): > > She was on a kick for a while of filling bottles water and refrigerating them to drink later. One day at the coffee shop with a tableful of us as witnesses, she said, “Maybe the reason why I’m tired all the time is because my water doesn’t have enough oxygen in it.” The connection between fatigue and oxygen in water is idiotic, to be sure, but what you seem to mean is that she (even more stupidly) forgot that there is an oxygen atom in a water molecule. However, there is a difference between oxygen being part of the molecular structure of water and oxygen being dissolved in water (which is what she apparently means). The latter is what fish breathe, for example. And water certainly varies in its oxygen content, so thinking that there might not be “enough [dissolved] oxygen” in your water, though stupid, is not quite as stupid as not knowing that there is an oxygen atom in water molecules in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![bauble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f6c823/32.png) [@bauble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bauble)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/358 "2010-01-20T20:27:36Z")
I don’t know that it’s shocking, but it bothers me that where I work we’re apparently unaware that Michigan has two peninsulas. On most of our maps, the upper one looks to be part of the Great Lakes (even greater now that Superior and Michigan run together). ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/359 "2010-01-20T20:33:41Z")
> [@bauble](#): > > I don’t know that it’s shocking, but it bothers me that where I work we’re apparently unaware that Michigan has two peninsulas. On most of our maps, the upper one looks to be part of the Great Lakes (even greater now that Superior and Michigan run together). It was only recently that I learned that they were called peninsulas. I just called them “parts.” I once had a conversation with someone from Michigan. I asked him what part he was from. “The part that looks like a glove, or the other part?” He looked at me like I had lobsters crawling out of my ears. “There are no parts. It’s all one land mass.” ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/360 "2010-01-20T20:55:10Z")
> [@EpicNonsense](#): > > Constantly find myself explaining what ‘memes’ are to people I know who are avid web users. But not just the definition, the actual memes themselves. “What’s a rickroll?” “LOLcat?” “2Girls1Cup?”… > > Just amazes me at how much internet culture web users are missing out on by never stepping outside of their normal routine of only checking emails or Facebook. One of the reasons some of my humor and puns don’t appeal to many anymore, I suppose. > > I sometimes feel like I’m from another planet when I talk to people who don’t use the internet or know nothing much about it… I suppose I sort of am, in a way. This reminds me of the unfortunate evening when Jay Leno put me in the position of having to explain to my parents what a MILF is. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353.md?page=19)