# Totally wrong stuff you believed to an embarrassingly advanced age **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 18, 2007, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477 "2007-06-18T16:42:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![JustAnotherGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/58f4c7/32.png) [@JustAnotherGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustAnotherGeek)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2007, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/381 "2007-06-23T22:30:21Z")
[QUOTE=dennis gallagher] I would like to hear more about the African American doctor who was/wasn’t denied a blood transfusion. I always thought it was true. [/QUOTE] Ask and ye shall receive… [The Master speaks!](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_073.html) ---
**Author:** ![Hubert\_Cumberdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hubert\_Cumberdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hubert_Cumberdale)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2007, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/382 "2007-06-23T22:38:48Z")
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir] As a boy, I knew a lot of words from reading before I knew how they were pronounced. I once embarrassed myself by pronouncing “despot” with a silent “t,” likening it to the pronunciation of “depot.” [/QUOTE] I shop at Home Despot all the time! I think I believed in God (at least in the religious superstition sense) until I was at least 14 or 15. ---
**Author:** ![Baffle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dec6dc/32.png) [@Baffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baffle)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2007, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/383 "2007-06-23T22:45:51Z")
[QUOTE=Cub Mistress] It was right here on the Dope that I learned the “forte” isn’t pronounced “for-tay” but is instead, “fort.” [/QUOTE] It really depends in what context you’re using the word. You don’t play your musical intrument ‘fort’, you play it ‘fortay’. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2007, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/384 "2007-06-23T23:03:48Z")
[QUOTE=Baffle] It really depends in what context you’re using the word. You don’t play your musical intrument ‘fort’, you play it ‘fortay’. [/QUOTE] Or you could read post 376. It has cites and everything. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2007, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/385 "2007-06-23T23:32:41Z")
It took me a long time to figure out that the name “Sean” in books I read was pronounced the same as “Shawn”. ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2007, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/386 "2007-06-24T00:34:12Z")
[QUOTE=Baffle] It really depends in what context you’re using the word. You don’t play your musical intrument ‘fort’, you play it ‘fortay’. [/QUOTE] I was going for the “that in which one excels” usage of forte. I don’t mind when others say “for-tay”, I’m just not crazy about being corrected when I say “fort.” It’s not that I mind the language changing, but “fort-tay” already means something else. Well, “fort” does too, so I guess that’s a pretty weak argument. Nevermind. I’ll just go with the flow. “For-tay” it is. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2007, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/387 "2007-06-24T01:11:34Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > Perhaps, in your grandfather’s time, “dick” was not slang for “penis”. Considering the name Dick van Dyke, perhaps the slang didn’t take hold until sometime in the early sixties? Someone taking the nickname “Dick” now would have no excuse. It’s a stage name. His agent did not think his real name, Penis van Lesbian, would be suitable. ---
**Author:** ![MissGypsy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8491ac/32.png) [@MissGypsy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissGypsy)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2007, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/388 "2007-06-24T02:00:07Z")
[QUOTE=jackdavinci] It took me a long time to figure out that the name “Sean” in books I read was pronounced the same as “Shawn”. [/QUOTE] But now there’s a weekend weather guy on the Today show who’s name is Sean, and pronounced “seen.” It annoys me every time I hear it. Similarly, when I was growing up in Indiana, there was a newscaster who’s first name was “Diane,” but prounouced “de-on,” like Dionne Warwick’s first name. For quite a while, I thought the TV news people just spelled her name incorrectly. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2007, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/389 "2007-06-24T05:06:12Z")
I once had to correct someone in his 30s that “hyperbole” had more than three syllables. He thought it was pronounced “hyper-bowl”. ---
**Author:** ![Ms.Pumpkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a87d85/32.png) [@Ms.Pumpkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms.Pumpkin)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2007, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/390 "2007-06-24T05:28:21Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] I once had to correct someone in his 30s that “hyperbole” had more than three syllables. He thought it was pronounced “hyper-bowl”. [/QUOTE] The first time I had occasion to use the word, I said that someone had a “breathe-y” voice. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2007, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/391 "2007-06-24T07:20:57Z")
> [@Cub Mistress](#): > > I’ll just go with the flow. “For-tay” it is. You could always just speak French and work around the whole issue that way. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2007, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/392 "2007-06-24T08:06:18Z")
[QUOTE=SkipMagic] Should you believe a poster is breaking a rule, the proper response is to report the post or otherwise alert a mod. What you shouldn’t do is insult the poster (outside the Pit); this is not a new or complicated rule, nor is it one with which you are unfamiliar, having received a similar warning in the past. Further comment on the subject should be posted in the Pit. [/QUOTE] Goodness me, are we still talking about that? Rather a waste of effort for a single use of the D-word over a post which seemed to have been submitted solely in order to be provocative (how I wish there was a word to describe such behaviour), and, y’know, _finally_ getting around to noticing the provoker at about the same time as you’re delivering the above lecture to me shows a certain slowness off the mark, Skipster. But really the whole affair’s too petty for the Pit, which is certainly saying something, and I promise you that next time I will keep my thoughts to myself, and however dickish I may consider someone’s dickishness, I won’t call a dick a dick in this forum. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2007, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/393 "2007-06-24T09:48:36Z")
[QUOTE=Leaper] I had no idea until this thread that people actually thought that pineapples grew on trees. 😃 [/QUOTE] I’m having great difficulty realizing that anyone anywhere thought that pineapples grew on trees. Lest that sound too smart-assed to bear, I’ve learned several things in this thread that I’ve been wrong about for many years. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2007, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/394 "2007-06-24T09:51:26Z")
I’m in London, England. Over here, ‘primer’ is always PRY-mer, rhymes with ‘timer’. Or rhymes with ‘rhymer’, come to think of it. It can mean an introductory guidebook, or an undercoat layer when painting a wall. I have never in my entire life heard ‘PRIM-mer’, rhymes with ‘trimmer’. Not even once. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2007, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/395 "2007-06-24T10:16:10Z")
I was about 9 before someone told me that spaghetti doesn’t grow on trees. I didn’t believe them…I do now though ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2007, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/396 "2007-06-24T13:20:10Z")
Wasn’t there an April Fool’s Day joke on BBC Television once involving a documentary about spaghetti farmers? ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2007, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/397 "2007-06-24T13:27:17Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] Wasn’t there an April Fool’s Day joke on BBC Television once involving a documentary about spaghetti farmers? [/QUOTE] [The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest](http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/spaghetti.html) You can watch it [here](http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/70000/video/_70980_aprilfool_vi.ram) ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2007, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/398 "2007-06-24T14:18:06Z")
**Malacandra** , I’ve already said to stop with the hijack and to keep further comments on it confined to the Pit or e-mail, yet you continue to respond regardless. That’s not wise, and neither is throwing in a trolling insinuation and insulting the same poster again. This is your second warning. Move it to the Pit, take it to e-mail or whatever third option you’d like, as long as you do not address it again in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![11811](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/9d8465/32.png) [@11811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/11811)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2007, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/399 "2007-06-24T18:09:42Z")
When I was little I thought that the purpose of tv commercials was to give the actors a chance to use the bathroom. I had a slight continence issue as a child, so that might have had something to do with my misconception. I think I was 11 or 12 before I realized that tv shows weren’t live. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2007, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477/400 "2007-06-24T20:43:01Z")
[QUOTE=Struan] [The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest](http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/spaghetti.html) You can watch it [here](http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/70000/video/_70980_aprilfool_vi.ram) [/QUOTE] Caution: that’s a Real Video file download, and not a YouTube or similar link. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-wrong-stuff-you-believed-to-an-embarrassingly-advanced-age/408477.md?page=21)