# What two people or things do you always confuse?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [April 14, 2008, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312 "2008-04-14T15:38:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f07891/32.png) [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/1 "2008-04-14T15:38:09Z")

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I have a lot of crossed wires, I think. It started when I was a little girl and was constantly insistent on watching the Disney movie The Black Hole. I kept insisting I’d never seen it before. What I meant to ask for (and realized about four times) was The Black Cauldron.

There are others.

For example: Fritz the Cat and Felix the Cat are VERY different.

Warren Buffet is the richest man in the country, but he did not get there from royalties on Margaritaville, which would make _Jimmy_ Buffet a little upset.

Someone else has already had problems with Jerry Lewis and Jerry Lee Lewis, so I won’t go there.

I know I have more, but what are yours?

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### Author: ![It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/it_s_not_rocket_surgery/32/312_2.png) [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/2 "2008-04-14T15:54:31Z")

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I used to confuse the words “cavalry” and “calvary”.

As in “The Calvary Cemetery? Which troops are buried there?”

And no, I am NOT dyslexic.

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### Author: ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/3 "2008-04-14T15:54:32Z")

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I suspect a lot of these will confuse other people, but for instance I can’t keep Kurt Russell and Michael Douglas straight in my head for some reason.

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### Author: ![Purgatory\_Creek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/74df32/32.png) [@Purgatory\_Creek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purgatory_Creek)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/4 "2008-04-14T16:31:37Z")

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[QUOTE=Cluricaun]  
I suspect a lot of these will confuse other people, but for instance I can’t keep Kurt Russell and Michael Douglas straight in my head for some reason.  
[/QUOTE]

Hah! I always get Kurt Russell and Patrick Swayze mixed up. I also confuse Gwen Stefani and Pink.

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### Author: ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/5 "2008-04-14T16:36:53Z")

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Jeff Bridges starred in one of my very favorite movies, The Big Lebowski, and I don’t like Jeff Daniels at all. But I still swap their names in conversation.

Some people also say Bridges looks like Kurt Russell, but I’ve never made that mistake. If Snake Plissken’s name was Jeff Russell, I guess I’d be screwed.

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### Author: ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/6 "2008-04-14T16:39:28Z")

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Bill Paxton/Pullman

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### Author: ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/7 "2008-04-14T16:41:17Z")

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Like Felix The Cat and Fritz The Cat, The Aristocats and The Aristocrats are also VERY different.

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### Author: ![Student\_Driver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3da27b/32.png) [@Student\_Driver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Student_Driver)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/8 "2008-04-14T16:45:12Z")

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Michael Moore and Roger Moore. Just the names, mind you. (I imagine Michael’s movie Roger & Me has something to do with that conflation.)

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### Author: ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/9 "2008-04-14T16:54:06Z")

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For some reason when typing about half the time I type “fro” instead of “for”. Unfortunately “fro” is a word so spell check never catches it and when proof reading I often gloss right by it.

I am not dyslexic, I know I do this yet seem unable to stop without slowing myself way down.

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### Author: ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/10 "2008-04-14T17:05:08Z")

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[Brian Cox,](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004051/) and [Albert Finney](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001215/) .

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### Author: ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/11 "2008-04-14T17:10:11Z")

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I confuse the words ‘garlic’ and ‘ginger’. This can cause problems whjen making my orange-pineapple-[del]garlic[/del] _ginger_ ice cream.

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### Author: ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/12 "2008-04-14T17:14:08Z")

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Mushrooms and marshmallows. My entire life I’ve been saying mushrooms when I really mean marshmallows. I just can’t ever get marshmallow to come out on the first try.

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### Author: ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/13 "2008-04-14T17:17:59Z")

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For the longest time I could not differentiate between Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins. Reading both of their works put a quick stop to that.

Two waiters at a restaurant the other day looked remarkably similar. Lucky I figured it out before my companion asked the wrong one where our change was.

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### Author: ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/14 "2008-04-14T17:24:40Z")

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Until very recently, I was constantly confusing the band **Boston** with **Journey**. On the plus side, my wife recently made the same mistake, so I didn’t feel so bad. I also tend to confuse **Depeche Mode** with **The Cure** , but that doesn’t come from any particular thought that the two sound alike. I just associate them with the same era of music that I didn’t listen to at the time.

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### Author: ![Surok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@Surok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surok)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/15 "2008-04-14T17:38:49Z")

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Dustin Hoffman/ Al Pacino/ Robert De Niro.

Tuesday/ Thursday. I’ll go for one of them, and almost invariably pick up the other one. Not so good when you’re trying to make a schedule with someone.

And when I was learning Russian, I used to consistently get the words for ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow’ mixed up, leading to such gems as ‘I hope yesterday will be a better day than tomorrow’.

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### Author: ![WF\_Tomba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@WF\_Tomba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WF_Tomba)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/16 "2008-04-14T17:45:16Z")

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I mix up June and July a lot.

It took me a long time to sort out the difference between Audrey Hepburn and Katharine Hepburn, but I’ve got it now.

As a teenager I tended to mix up Freud and Marx, but I was just ignorant.

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### Author: ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/17 "2008-04-14T17:50:54Z")

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[QUOTE=Marley23]  
Jeff Bridges starred in one of my very favorite movies, The Big Lebowski, and I don’t like Jeff Daniels at all. But I still swap their names in conversation.

Some people also say Bridges looks like Kurt Russell, but I’ve never made that mistake. If Snake Plissken’s name was Jeff Russell, I guess I’d be screwed.  
[/QUOTE]

Hell, I think Jeff Bridges and Jeff Daniels look and sound alike too, so I get them mixed up ALL the damn time.

Seriously, for the longest time I honestly thought the guy from Dumb and Dumber was the same guy from The Big Lebowski…I mean, between the beard, long hair, and sunglasses, it easily could have been!

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### Author: ![Belrix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed655f/32.png) [@Belrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belrix)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/18 "2008-04-14T17:52:37Z")

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I regularly reverse March & May in conversation and, similarly, February and November.

The first pair are for a decently obvious reason. The second pair, I think, are because one is the second month and the other is the second-to-last month.

Just guessing, obviously.

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### Author: ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/19 "2008-04-14T18:31:08Z")

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My biggest one has long been and still is Siegfried and Roy. I keep calling them Sigmund and Freud. Not if I say their names separately, of course; I don’t call them _Sigmund_ Fischbacher or _Freud_ Horn. It’s just something about saying the duo’s name as popularly spoken that always trips me up.

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### Author: ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2008, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/20 "2008-04-14T18:39:31Z")

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Jake Gyllenhaall: [Jake Gyllenhaal](http://imdb.com/media/rm4172389632/nm0350453)  
and  
Toby Maguire: [Tobey Maguire](http://imdb.com/media/rm3937508608/nm0001497)

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