# 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:** 4
### Author:  [@Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alive_At_Both_Ends)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2008, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/61 "2008-04-15T20:10:07Z")
Goofy and Pluto.
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### Author:  [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2008, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/62 "2008-04-15T21:06:04Z")
[ul]
[li] **Jamie Farr** and **Jim Nabors** look similar to me (at least in their heydays) and I’d often confuse the two.[/li][li]I always thought I was the only one who got **Dustin Hoffman** and **Robert DiNiro** mixed up.[/li][li]I used to get **Vermont** and **New Hampshire** mixed up until I realized that Vermont is vaguely in the shape of a V. I imagine some folks from the eastern U.S. have trouble distinguishing Colorado and Wyoming on an unlabeled map.[/li][li]Ever since **Genesis** went pop I have trouble distinguishing such songs from the ones that are by **Phil Collins** as a soloist.[/li][li]An ex-girlfriend who was into all of Stephen Spielberg’s and George Lucas’s movies also collected the soundtracks to these movies, many of which were composed by John Williams. One day she got a John Williams CD that turned out to be acoustical guitar pieces, not the same John Williams at all.[/li][li]When I was a kid I was afraid to mention the name of the Canadian city **Regina** since I had it confused with the word “vagina”.[/li][/ul]
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### Author:  [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2008, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/63 "2008-04-15T21:45:51Z")
[QUOTE=dwc1970]
[I imagine some folks from the eastern U.S. have trouble distinguishing Colorado and Wyoming on an unlabeled map.
[/QUOTE]
One way to distinguish the two is that COlorado is one of the states that make up the “Four COrners” [region.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Corners_(United_States))
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### Author:  [@Blather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blather)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2008, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/64 "2008-04-15T22:22:22Z")
This thread is representative of why I try not to date women who’s names begin with an “S” sound! Susan, Cindy, Sarah, whatever!!! All it does is get me into trouble.
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### Author:  [@pasunejen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pasunejen)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2008, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/65 "2008-04-15T23:23:05Z")
Neil Postman and Norman Mailer.
There are a bunch of others, but this one always makes me laugh when I catch myself.
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### Author:  [@Justin\_Credible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Credible)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2008, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/66 "2008-04-15T23:43:39Z")
I’m pretty good with geography, but I always mix up Vermont and New Hampshire.
Is there any kind of trick to remembering which is which?
I mean, which one is on the left, and which is on the right…I know Vermont looks sort of like a V.
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### Author:  [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2008, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/67 "2008-04-15T23:45:09Z")
[Johann Strauss I](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Strauss_I) and [Johann Strauss II](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Strauss_II). Johann Strauss I, the dad, is an Austrian composer best known for his waltzes. Johann Strauss II, the son, is an Austrian composer best known for his waltzes. I mean, _seriously._ (And if that isn’t bad enough, there’s a [third one.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Strauss_III))
I also used to mix up the [first Scipio Africanus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scipio_Africanus), who fought Hannibal in the Second Punic War, and the [second Scipio Africanus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scipio_Aemilianus_Africanus), his grandkid-by-adoption, who levelled Carthage in the Third Punic War. Getting better at that now, though. Of course, there’s a whole bunch of more [Scipios](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius_Cornelius_Scipio_%28disambiguation%29) to mix up.
Also, count me in among those who think that Kate Winslet and Cate Blanchett should just be combined into one actress already.
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### Author:  [@Charger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charger)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2008, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/68 "2008-04-16T00:16:31Z")
[QUOTE=Anastasaeon]
My biggest one has long been and still is Siegfried and Roy.
[/QUOTE]
For a long time, I confused them with Penn & Teller. Probably the whole two-guys-doing-shows-in-Vegas thing.
Which reminds me of when I used to always confuse Laurel & Hardy with Abbott & Costello.
I also have been known to confuse Patrick Swayze with Kurt Russell. They should play brothers in a movie some day.
I have always heard references to the Bill Paxton/Pullman confusion, but I have always thought they were very different actors. It has to be the name similarity, because they are so different from each other. Maybe it stands out to me because I like them both, but I do realize that they have a similar dry delivery. For a while, I thought Bill Pullman might have been the guy who played Costner’s dad on Field of Dreams, but that was another guy who looks like him, Dwier Brown.
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### Author:  [@Lillith\_Fair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lillith_Fair)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2008, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/69 "2008-04-16T15:35:20Z")
[QUOTE=Surok]
Dustin Hoffman/ Al Pacino/ Robert De Niro.
[/QUOTE]
Yes! I always have to stop and think about all three of them!!
Also Laura Linney and Joan Allen.
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### Author:  [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2008, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/70 "2008-04-20T16:09:59Z")
I always confuse getting up to go to work and lying in bed like a lazy cunt.
Unfortunately I always go to work.
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### Author:  [@MadPansy64](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadPansy64)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2008, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/71 "2008-04-20T22:44:53Z")
Hamsters and gerbils. The type with a tail are nasty bitey little bastards, the ones without are not, and one or the other powers the internet, but I’ll be damned if I can remember which is which.
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### Author:  [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2008, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/72 "2008-04-21T00:10:32Z")
For some reason I got it into my head that Philip Seymour Hoffman played Capote in _Infamous_. I was amazed at how little he seemed, physically, in this role and had concluded that they must have used giant sized furniture and props in some of the scenes. After all, in _Along Came Polly_ Hoffman’s character seemed to be an oversized lummox. Then there was that Capote lisp, which he amazingly kept up throughout the film.
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### Author:  [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2008, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/73 "2008-04-21T02:15:53Z")
Gerry Rafferty and Gordon Lightfoot. Oh, and that Edmund Fitzgerald guy, too. 😃
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### Author:  [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2008, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/74 "2008-04-21T13:00:22Z")
George Bush and George Bush.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2008, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/75 "2008-04-21T13:12:28Z")
Hillary Clinton and [Medusa.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/00/Medusa_by_Caravaggio.jpg)
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### Author:  [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2008, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/76 "2008-04-21T22:28:49Z")
[QUOTE=Justin Credible]
I’m pretty good with geography, but I always mix up Vermont and New Hampshire.
Is there any kind of trick to remembering which is which?
[/QUOTE]
Maine is next to New Hampshire, so you could imagine a big area named MaiNEwhampshire (as long as you remember that Maine is the part to the right on the map even if it’s on the left of the [portmanteau](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau) word).
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### Author:  [@Amber\_in\_Treasury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amber_in_Treasury)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2008, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/77 "2008-04-21T23:36:53Z")
[QUOTE=Hilarity N. Suze]
Sarah Jessica Parker/Jennifer Aniston
[/QUOTE]
Horseface I and Horseface II…very confusing indeed.
Also, Ben Affleck/Matt Damon. :smack:
And when I was little: Tourist/Terrorist!
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2008, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/78 "2008-04-21T23:52:21Z")
Office Depot and OfficeMax. It doesn’t help me at all that the closest ones to me are across the street from each other.
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### Author:  [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/79 "2008-04-22T02:00:30Z")
I always confuse Karen Allen and the one that isn’t Karen Allen. If I’m even spelling it right. One of them was in the Indiana Jones movies, I think. Looked a little like Karen Carpenter, who isn’t the one that isn’t Karen Allen. Well, before Carpenter died, I mean. In fact, a while before she died, to be on the safe side. Who was the one who played the female interest in Scrooged? Was that Karen Allen, or the one who isn’t Karen Allen? I know it wasn’t Karen Carpenter, forget I mentioned Karen Carpenter.
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### Author:  [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-two-people-or-things-do-you-always-confuse/445312/80 "2008-04-22T02:01:36Z")
\>Maine is next to New Hampshire, so you could imagine a big area named MaiNEwhampshire
Did you know they are in an even bigger area named NE?
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