As clever as we might think we are, we all have gaps in our knowledge. After all, it’s impossible to know everything about our world. You might live your whole life believing that dolphins are land mammals who swim just for fun. Or assuming that a "birthday suit" is a specific set of clothes people wear when they turn another year older. Then, when someone points out that it's completely not true, you can’t help but wonder whether others thought the same as you.
Well, negan2018's post on Ask Reddit revealed that there are plenty of people who have also experienced these embarrassing moments. The user asked fellow community members, "What really obvious thing have you only just realized?" and thousands started sharing their stories.
As they say, the more you read, the more you know. So get ready to take a deep dive into some of the best answers we have collected from this thread. Make sure to upvote the ones you enjoyed most and share your own little misunderstandings in the comments below!
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I recently realized I was allergic to carrots. I just thought they made everyone's mouth numb, you know, just like almonds.... I also learned recently that I have an almond allergy.
I have oral allergy syndrome that didn't start happening till I was in my 20s. I get itchy, tingly and/or sore gums, lips, throat, roof of mouth and tongue when eat most raw fruit and vegetables. Rockmelon is the worst for it and I love rockmelon. As the years have gone by it has been gradually getting worse and worse.
The first time I visited the USA I was on my own and in NY and going to all the museums. I kept seeing signs that said "No strollers" and thought, because we call strollers prams in the UK, that you guys are super strict about the proper amount of attention required to visit a museum. I actually pretended to show more interest than I had in order not to be thougth of as some deadbeat out for a casual stroll.
It wasn't until about day three that I saw a "No strollers" sign that included a graphic for idiots.
I hate to burst your bubble, but that is a "no funky monkey" sign.
I must've been around 11-12 years old, when I realized that "in order of appearance" during the end credits of a movie doesn't list the actors/actresses by who is the most good looking.
To find out why many of us realize obvious things only later in life, we reached out to Joshua Klapow, Ph.D. He is a clinical psychologist and creator of MentalDrive, an initiative to help people improve their well-being by providing strategies they can use every day. According to him, we humans naturally adapt to things that happen frequently and regularly.
"We literally are hardwired to move the common occurrences into the background of our consciousness so that we can look out for novel things," he told Bored Panda. "This happens because things that are not obvious, that are not common, that stand out, could pose a threat to our well-being, or could be something really rewarding."
Klapow explained that we often take things we do and see every day for granted, "only to pay more attention to those actions and interactions that grab our attention. The obvious goes in the background, so we reserve brain bandwidth to notice the novel, standout occurrences in our life."
The division symbol ÷ is just a fraction. The two dots represent numbers
This girl I know has a dog named Deoji. Two years into knowing her and being around Deoji, I was having a conversation with her sister in law and I said "I love the name Deoji, how did she come up with that?" Her sister in law responds, "Deoji" and I said "yea, it's a neat name". She started laughing and said "No, D.O.G. ...the way you spell dog"
I'm still mindblown about this lol.
I knew a dog named D.O.G. Deoji is even funnier. I'd love to correct a vet's office in spelling that name.
Saw a place labled as "Public house" when I moved nearby recently.
It was at that moment I realized "OH thats why they call them PUBS. Its short for public house"
However, throughout our lives, there are fewer things that are different and unknown to us. "We start seeing the same things over and over. We call that maturity and growth and development." When we become adults, we can look at the seemingly common in a more detailed way. "And when we do, we often discover that that obvious has so much more to it that we missed earlier on," the clinical psychologist said.
"Another reason we miss the obvious is that we sometimes are not ready psychologically to handle [it]," Klapow added. "A relationship that is toxic, a love interest that is too intense, a realization that we don’t have a skill or strength we believe we have." While these things may be crystal clear to the outside observer, "our own psychological defenses go up and protect us from seeing the obvious. Because to do so might overwhelm us emotionally and psychologically."
"This pattern can go on for years, until which time we either have the psychological maturity or our life circumstances change such that we can look at the obvious which once posed a psychological threat in a more mature, less defensive way."
Both of these processes are something that everyone has in common. "People have these in varying degrees and, more importantly, they learn to overcome these hardwired tendencies in order to see life more clearly and experience life more fully."
VERY LATE BUT it's called the alphabet because the Greek "Alphabet" starts with the letter alpha, beta....
The piggy in 'This Little Piggy' didn’t go to the market to go shopping. ... I’m still horrified
The Grammys are called that because the awards are gramophones.
I only just today realized that the “walk the plank” plank on a boat is not a special addition pirates added to their ships as a means of public execution that looked like a little wooden diving board.
It is, in fact, the very same plank as the gangplank you’d normally use to get on and off of the ship. It is not the presence of the plank that is threatening, but the absence of dock.
Oh wow! I never knew that! I did know it was sometimes called the gangplank, but I didn’t know that’s what’s used to board the ship.
Klapow stated that we experience life from our perspective. So what can be 100% clear to others may be totally missed by us. "Our defense mechanisms, our rationalizations, our attention to other aspects of our life can carry us through time without any insight into what others see so clearly," he said. And when we realize we lived our whole lives believing untrue things, we might feel uncomfortable.
"We are embarrassed because the obvious is often simple and clear to everyone else." He mentioned that we feel this way for several reasons. The first would be that we simply missed what others saw. Then, "we may have made mistakes, hurt others, missed out on opportunities because we didn't see the obvious. Lastly, we have to acknowledge to others and ourselves that despite how we think of ourselves or how we are seen by others, we have missed something."
Not me but my sister asked me about 2 and a half months ago when we were watching John Wick 3 during the desert scene she asked me if they were real and I asked if what were real and she said “Sand Lands” and I busted out laughing so god damn hard and said “you mean deserts? Yes they’re real”. Thinking about it right now Got me laughing.
Super embarrassing but in college I would order Roman Cokes because I heard everyone else ordering the same...turns out I misheard everyone and found out it was just rum and coke
I regret to inform you all that it just occurred to me the other day that the game is called Sims because they’re in a simulation. I’m 26.
When we uncover evident things, it can feel like discovering something brand new. It all depends on how we interpret the experience: "It’s easy to feel embarrassed, frustrated, guilty that we missed something that was there the whole time."
We should try to "turn the internal dialog around and tell ourselves: 'I now see things differently, more clearly, and that is going to help me from this day moving forward'. Then, the initial embarrassment and frustration can transition into gratitude and excitement for arriving at the discovery of the obvious," he continued.
That parents have children write letters to Santa so they can figure out what to buy them for Christmas. I can’t believe how I never put that together after 32 years on this earth I just thought it was fun little tradition..
What? You don't believe in Santa? A lump of coal for you next Christmas;0)
I realized that to be in one's birthday suit it means to be without clothes. I thought for the longest time it was a specific set of clothes you would wear on your birthday each year. I found out when I asked, "what happens when you don't fit in your birthday suit anymore?" Lol
My grandpa used to ask me when I was a kid if I could talk without moving my lips. Being a dumb ass kid I would always give it my best effort, and thought I was pretty good at it. 20 years later I realised the old bugger was just telling me to shut the f*ck up haha. Too bad I can't let him know I finally figured it out.
"We are growing, learning, adapting organisms. What is foreign at one point in time can become obvious later as we learn and develop. At any point in our life, we have a chance to look at what we see every day and look at it differently. We never know what we may discover if we are courageous enough to consider the obvious when the world around us is telling us it is sitting right in front of us," Klapow concluded.
I was playing Monopoly, and someone owned a load of properties all clustered together. I said, 'You’ve got a bit of a monopoly on that part of the board. Hey that’s funny, because we’re playing Monopoly, and you got a...oh, I see now.
That they put measurement stickers next to gas station doors so if a robber is running out of the store you can get a better estimate of their height. I always thought they were just there for something fun to do on road trip stops....
A screensaver has a purpose and it literally saves your screen from an image being burned into it. I'm 37
That Michelangelo's David is David from David and Goliath. How did I not know this?? I thought it was just dude called Dave.
Raincoats typically have bright colours so you're easier to spot during heavy rain, not because raincoat designers have bad taste
Thought that raw hazelnuts don't taste good, because they give this weird tingle in your mouth. Found out I had a nut allergy when it suddenly turned from "tingle" to "anaphylaxis" and I ended up in hospital for eating nut chocolate
My mom used to make my sisters and I “belly-buttons” for dinner. I was 27 when I realized that they were actually tortellini, but she knew we were dumb kids and would refuse something named so strange even though they were delicious.
For the longest time, I always thought Prima Donna was Pre-Madonna
I always thought “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too” was a weird saying because why wouldn’t I be able to eat my freaking slice of cake? It’s my cake.
Nobody was telling me that I can’t have my cake. Turns out they mean you can’t eat the cake while also still retaining it. Once it is eaten, it is gone. An idiom I did not understand until this year. I am 27.
Oh you want a freaking doozy? For YEARS, I did not realize it was Mike Myers playing both Austin Powers AND Dr Evil. I don't know how I missed it, but it never twigged that it was the same actor. Felt like a right royal twat when that was pointed out to me!
I live in a part of Chicago called Greektown for 8 years and never realized the blue and white Christmas lights were meant to represent the colors on their flag. It just dawned on me today.
I'm in my fifties. I grew up in a rural area north of New York City, I'm a veteran, I'm reasonably intelligent, reasonably well-traveled.
I've been hearing (and repeating this expression on and off for all of my life:
Friend/acquaintance 1: "Hey, man see you soon!" Friend/acquaintance 2: "Not if I see you first." smirk
It's just within the last few years that I realized that's a -almost always joking, kind- jab at Friend/acquaintance 1.
It was so ritualized as a way to say goodnight to a buddy, that it never occurred to me that it meant that the friend would choose to avoid the other person.
In the movie "Cats vs Dogs" when the dog goes "Son of my mom!" He's actually saying Son of a b*tch
Evidence that once again we insult men by insulting the women in their lives
The mommy in that Christmas song wasn't cheating with Santa but instead, it's the dad dressed in a Santa Claus costume. That's why 'I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus
Cruella de Vil was a cruel devil.
This is going to make me seem dumb as hell but I recently realized why pickles don’t ever.. come fresh...
For a long time I thought "to bust a nut" meant that you were going to kick a guy in the balls or beat him up. So anytime I was getting worked up or angry talking about some guy I would say " I'm going to bust his f*cking nut" not knowing the real meaning. Nobody ever said anything but it was always followed by my friends laughing so I assumed it was because I was being dramatic.
Years go by and my coworker is telling me about some rude person he met and I said "you should definitely bust that guy's nut", to which he paused and said "do you even know what that means?" Suffice it to say I was extremely embarrassed and horrified when he explained it to me.
When I was little for some reason I hated toast. Just hated it. My parents always tried to make me eat it but I always refused. My grandma decided to try something different. She took toast, cut it up into tiny squares, put some butter on them and called them “Little Pillows.” I ate them all the time. Only now, at 22 years old, did I realize it was just freakin toast.
I am pretty sure she put the butter before cutting them all into small pieces :D Just a random obsessive thought I got :D
When I was little we had an Australian shepherd named Sydney. I didn’t understand why her name was Sydney until 18 years later.
I live in Denmark so english is not my native language and I just realised that weekend means the end of the week.
Yeah I didn’t realise Breakfast was literally means Breaking fast the from the previous day… 🤔🤔
I thought astigmatism was A stigmatism. So I thought you could have two stigmatisms
I thought an attaché case was 'a taché case' for far too long. I never needed to talk about them, just heard them mentioned in dramas or documentaries. I still half think that's what's being said.
That big ship's wheel I got to turn as a kid was not actually controlling the cruise ship.
The song "it's getting hot in here" isn't actually talking about here temperature
I felt very, very stupid
I’m 30 and I realized a few months ago that “howdy” is Cowboy for “how do you do”
It's from Eluzabethan/Sbakespearean times, a contraction of how do ye.
My friend (22 y.o) only realized last year that dolphins have to swim and live in the water to survive. He thought they're land mammals but they just really like to swim for fun.
That to take off the plastic piece on top of deodorant you just simply twist the bottom a few times lmao
That the phrase mint condition means like new because it's the condition coins leave the mint in
I kept seeing the same Chinese characters on restaurant's signs and I always wanted to know what it meant. A week ago I found out: they mean restaurant.
My boyfriend did not know that his electric toothbrush has a timer on it that goes off at 1 minute and 2 minutes. He actually returned it and got a new one thinking it was broken, since the “timer” is just a brief sort of pause/reduction in the vibration. He would be like “wtf I literally just charged this f*cking thing” thinking that the battery was already dying. One day, and I can’t remember exactly what the conversation was, I brought up how I liked that my toothbrush let me know when I had brushed long enough, and it was like a lightbulb went off in his head and suddenly he put it together that that was what his toothbrush was doing all along.
No way! That's what I did. Threw mine away and went back to normal ones!
My whole life I thought "Pay-per-view" was actually "paper view" because I had only ever heard people say it, and only recently saw it written out.
I was 28 before I realized the meaning to the why is 6 afraid of 7 joke. I always just thought it was dumb, 7,8,9, like you’re just counting.......the electric bill wasn’t paid until later in my life.
The houses in Bikini Bottom are car mufflers...
It's Bikini Bottom because it's under Bikini Atoll where early atomic bombs were conducted.
When I was a kid my mom told me my rabbit Rosie went to live on a farm. In my early twenties I saw an episode of The Sopranos where everyone makes fun of Tony when he realizes his dog didn't really go to live on a farm. That's when I realized Rosie had not gone to a farm either. Edit: I would like to officially apologize for the cascading wave of terrible realizations my post has caused. Truly we sit on Thrones of Lies. ~~~~~edit 2: it turns out a lot of animals really do get to go live on the farm from the responses here so that's cool
I hate that parents do this. They aren't protecting their children, they're protecting themselves from having to deal with their children's feelings. A child has every right to be upset if a beloved animal dies or has to be put down. Not just that but it's an important part of childhood to experience loss like this, to feel devastated, and, with the support of family, to learn that it can be survived, that it is possible to always miss and grieve for someone but still carry on with a good life.
I just finished reading Dracula by Bram Stoker. At the end of the book, there was a little blurb about the author, Abraham Stoker. Bram is short for Abraham. I didn't know that.
This is so so stupid but I didn’t realize my moms were gay until I was almost 14 and I literally heard my mom say “I’m gay” to my grandma as a joke.
I knew that lesbians/same-sex/gay were relatively interchangeable but it didn’t click as “my moms are lesbians which is another term for being gay and they are gay” until that moment.
As a child I was confused as to why Mary, Kate, and Ashley were referred to as the Olsen twins and why ads on TV only ever showed two of them at a time.
And then 16 year old me found out about Mary-Kate.
This reminds me.... when I was a kid and read the "Mary, Lou and...." books. I thought the titles said Mary-Lou even though I also read the books and knew they were two people. Felt so dumb when it finally clicked. It was as if I'd never considered the titles in relation to the stories...
English is not my first language, so I was mind blown when I realized how "keys", "kiss", "he's", "his", "this", "these", etc differed in sound (pronunciation).
I first noticed this when I told my boyfriend I wanted a "keys" and he looked very confused lol. Now I try my best to pronounce them properly
Valve released Steam. It took me a long time to realize the pun.
Not just now, but I think it applies. I'm currently in my mid 30s. I didn't realize until I was about 28 years old that my mom's name was Betty and her sister's name was Wilma. Betty and Wilma. From the Flintstones. (And yes, they were definitely named after the cartoon, I asked.)
Flash forward two years later, my aunt Wilma informed me that they were fraternal twins. Again, another thing for 30 years I had not known.
Edit: A few folks have asked for a bit of context on the twin thing. My mom died when I was fairly going so I never had her birthday as a thing. I wasn't super close to Wilma, so I wasn't really celebrating hers either. I guess it was just "known" in my family so nobody ever mentioned it until totally randomly she said something about it.
On the name thing, they actually both went by nicknames their whole lives so I never even thought of them as Betty and Wilma, but just Mom and Aunt Cookie (she likes to bake).
...learned from a similar thread, but I was 40 years old before I realized that there is an arrow indicating what side the gas cap is on by the gas gauge.
That people who always seem to know what direction it is (north, south, east, west) AREN’T somehow magical magnets but are rather just noticing where the goddamn sun is in the sky... why did no one tell me?!
Actually, people can smell which way is which...using their scents of direction
I learned that allspice is actually one spice and not a blend of spices containing cinnamon and nutmeg.
I always found it funny how ABBA songs fit the movie Mamma Mia so well...it took me years to figure out the movie was made around the songs
Today my friend realised pipe cleaners were originally for cleaning pipes....
(after I suggested using one to clean a metal straw because it's similar to a pipe)
Personal injury lawyer commercials play more frequently during daytime TV because their clientele is injured, stuck at home, and watching daytime TV.
The reason the cord hook on the vacuum spins is so you can take the whole cord off at once instead of unraveling it one loop at a time, like I have been my whole life.
Ahhhh, good to know. I have always had vacuums where the cord retracts but I have a new vacuum where you have to loop the cord yourself and noticed on Monday that the hook spun around. So now I know why.
When people said 'it's a double-edged sword,' I thought the sword's hilt was also a sword. Only until yesterday, it was explained to me by my brother that it was just sharp on both sides of the blade
To be honest, that analogy would work too! No matter where you held that sword, you'd end up hurting yourself.
Phineas and Ferb are shaped like a p and an f
Pancakes are cakes made in a pan I thought they were invented by a guy named Pan until this morning
Undergarments and socks are there to cover places that sweat and stink so that you don't sweat and stink on the thing on top of the undergarment and can replace the undergarment more often
This is true, plus they also protect more sensitive areas against more robust fabrics.
That my girlfriends name is actually spelled Kihyah , I really though it was spelled Kia. Luckily she never found this fact out.
This is why changing the spelling of a well-known name will be very annoying for your child. For example if you name your daughter Emily but spell it Emmalee she will spend a lifetime telling people how it's meant to be written.
Eeyore' is the noise donkeys make
Guess you have never heard of Wonky Donkey coz he goes hee haw.
Wonky Donkey was a segment on Saturday morning TV with Ant & Dec and Cat Deeley.
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thats the sound cowboys make when they ride their horses lmao
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That's not what it sounds (onomatopoeia) like though, just the name.
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I was a voracious reader and was way ahead of the curve during school, but didn't realize until age 50 that there are two discreets/discretes.
One website said the trick to remembering them is the two E letters stay next to each other when they want to whisper a secret.
That calling some one simple is just a nice way of calling some one stupid. Wife informed me of this, after 28 years of my grandma calling me simple.
When teenagers said “we’re going to TP a house” I always thought it was “teepee” and it never made sense to me since they just covered a house with toilet paper. I recently realized that TP was the initials for toilet paper.. I’m 27.
Is TPing a house really a common thing like they make it out to be in movies?
I didnt know the characters on Family Guy had accents. Live in New England Watching with my wife (not from here) and she says wow they really nailed the accents! I say "what accents?" Blew my mind when she explained not everyone talks like that lmao
I never really thought of New Englanders having much of an accent compared to the rest of the states. The Ohio accent is supposed to be the standard, since it's somewhat centrally located, and New England isn't tooo far from there. At least, this is what I always thought. I'm from the midwest, married a guy from CT. Never realized he had much of an accent (apart from 'qwater') until my dad admitted to me one day that he can't understand what my husband is saying.
When I realize words I use all the time are painfully literal in their meaning. For example, breakfast implies you are literally "breaking your fast". Afternoon is "after the noon hour". I feel that when I find words like these, I've had an radical realization, but, I'm just dense.
i realized at the age of 26 that narwhals are real because they were on an octonauts episode
i walked into the room and was like, "i thought they only do real animals on this show" then the kids' dad said, "you're joking... right?"
In order to properly use a hand dryer, you have to rub your hands.
I used to just put my hands under it and question why it was taking so long, but then I saw one of my friends rubbing their hands, and I felt stupid
It’s not that stupid. More like physics. By rubbing you spread the water everywhere again to increase the surface and thus it vaporizes faster/easier. Not rubbing would make your hands hotter at some spots and the water concentrating in other cooler spots and not vaporising as well there. 🙃
It's "For all intents and purposes", not "For all intensive purposes." How did I not recognize what I'm saying just doesn't make sense?
I learned a couple years ago that it's not "The mayor of bad news" it's actually "the bearer of bad news". I'm 25.
Ah man! There should BE a Mayor of Bad News! A really good chap who delivers news in a calm and reassuring way...whilst telling you what he'll be doing about it all. Yeah.
Say My Name by Destiny’s Child is about a girl on the phone to her man and she wants proof that he’s not with another girl
It's called a Department Store because there are, wait for it, separate departments within the one store.
I had a Sudden Clarity Clarence moment with that one recently.
My bedroom door was broke and I finally got around to fixing it. Thought the knob was broke cause it was pushed in towards the door so I pulled it out and realized that was how you locked the door.
Ok, this was a couple of years ago, but it was something I realized WAY too late in my life...
You're supposed to use the towel to dry yourself after a shower. I was just wrapping it around myself and sitting / walking around in it until I air dried.
The Lead singer of Blur, is the lead singer of Gorillaz.
That when I was a kid and my dad would take me to the video store on Friday nights and he would go into the back room where only adults were allowed, that he was looking at porn.
Eww. I've nothing against people watching porn, but seeking it out while you have your kid with you is not right
That you have to add a can of water to Campbell's soup. Apparently I've been drinking straight condensed soup...
Always read instructions. Add water to the big cans and you get watery soups.
Not me but my husband just understood that queue is pronounced 'q' and not 'quay'. His mind was blown
By “tornados sound like trains” they don’t mean tornados whistle a “choo choo” sound.
It's the "doors closing" sound that lets you know there's a tornado
Alucard from castlevania is Dracula backwards
Same for the Hellsing Ultimate Alucard. My BF loves that anime, but didn't realize the dudes names meaning until I pointed it out to him
A chef is called a chef in a restaurant because restaurants originated in France and ‘chef’ just means 'boss' in French
Not so much that restaurants originated in France (I believe the earliest evidence of a restaurant is actually in Japan) but that France was in the ascendancy when restaurant culture became fixed. Because France was where it was all at at the time it was a sign of status to use French terms. Even the word restaurant is French. Music notation, on the other hand, was finalised when Italy was the country with the most influence.
This sounds ridiculous, but I recently found out about the term "knee jerk reaction"
My whole life I had been saying it how I heard it, and just figured it was spelled something like "neidric reaction" like it was some psychology term
I had a Scottish classmate in a Comparative Anatomy class. She once talked about 'stoffaphoeffa faetacol'. I wrote it down to look it up. Later, as postgrads were shared an office. I realised she had actually said: 'Feed a cold; starve a fever.'
I used to always pour water into our coffee maker one glass at a time. It was such a pain in the ass, especially to fill the reservoir to the number of cups I wanted. Until I realized I could just fill the carafe with water, which has the exact same measurements, and pour the water in that way
You can't count on that a bit. The "cup size" is not highly standardized.
Up until last year I thought Nat Geo was a person. I then realised it was short for National Geographic.
i'm old enough that i can remember when shortenings like Nat Geo started. Still hurts my ears
The villain in Halloween is not played by Michael Myers.
Tenure is the word - not ‘ten year’, which is what I thought teachers got as like job security once they’d worked for 10 years.
"First I'll need tenure! And a big laboratory, ten thousand dollars grant money, and five grad students - at least three of them Chinese." "Done! Now what's the plan?" "What plan? I'm set for life! Au revoir, suckers!" "...Aren't you going to DO something about that guy??" "I'd like to, but he's got tenure."
It called Men’s Wearhouse and not Men’s Warehouse. It’s been a couple years since I realized this and I just think that’s a clever name.
Today the radio taught me Mariah Carey wrote and sang “All I Want for Christmas is You.” All this time I thought it was just a cover that she did so well, people loved it more than the original. Turns out it is the original
that a skirt and a dress are two different things. I'm 42.
Principal Belding from Saved by the Bell is named "bell ding."
I am never 0% responsible for my issues. I am always 1% - 100% responsible.
SNL cast members are listed in alphabetical order in the opening credits. Have been watching for 30 years...
I'm disappointed that no-one mentioned the well-know hymn lyric, "The cross eyed bear for Jesus"
It's Gladly, the cross eyed bear. The bears name is Gladly!
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I had just moved to Nova Scotia and went to the MicMac Mall in Halifax. I assumed it was recognition of the Scots (Mac) and Irish (mic) who settled there. I mean Nova Scotia means New Scotland .Boy, was I wrong. It is named for the First Nation's tribe the Mi'kmaq, pronounced Meeg Maw. Learn something everyday.
That when you tell someone to break a leg, it's because you hope they get cast.
No it's not. It's because of a superstition about wishing an actor good luck.
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Slightly more chilling version; not me, a great aunt. She and her parents only realized she was blind in one eye when they tried to play a game of “I spy” covering up the right eye and she said “don’t be stupid, we have to cover the left eye…”
I was shocked to discover as a teenager that sand dollars were actually alive at some point.
Last year i realized that "cinderella" has the word cinder in it, because the original was called "Aschenbrödel". Asche is ash.... cinder... ok >_>
In Danish we call her Askepot. Pot of ashes.
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I was about 11 when I discovered that my aunt was not called as i always called her. Her brother gave her a nickname that struck so everyone in the family calls her by the nickname.
I had an aunt named Geraldine. She was the youngest & was called ‘Babe’. She lived into her ‘80s & during her funeral the pastor asked for a show of hands of people who knew her real name. There was about 50 people there. I was one of three to raise my hand.
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I grew up with an Auntie Henry and people used to laugh at me and tell me that couldn't be her name, but I insisted it was. Turned out she was Rosamund and Henry was a nickname. Also as a child, didn't realize that my dad and his four sisters had four different fathers. Looking back, it's obvious, but you just don't question stuff as a child!
I learned this year that that one song in Annie doesn't I fact go "It's a hard NOT life" it goes "it's a hard KNOCK life" and honestly I feel like my whole life has been a lie because of it.
My childhood best friend thought deer cross the road at "deer crossing 5 miles signs", thought they lined up in 5 miles. Learned she thought that because she noted it was inconvenient that the deer cross the highway :D
I've been waiting my entire life to actually see a deer crossing the road at one of those signs, so I can take a photo. Wish me luck.
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Okay, here's a historical one for you. In Canada, in colonial times, there was a French area called Acadia. There were problems and a bunch of them decided to WALK to the nearest French settlements ... in Louisiana. In those times, "di" sounds often got changed to "j" sounds, hence "Indian" became "Injun". In the same way, Acadian was pronounced "Acajun", and when one of the Acadians was identified as being "Acajun", others misunderstood it as "He is A CAJUN" rather than "He is Acadian". The Cajuns are the descendants of the French Canadian Acadians who left Canada to resettle in Louisiana.
I worked at a restaurant and people constantly called asking for the "bilgerone" but it was different every time. I assumed it was a special sandwich that used something called "bilgerone". About a month later did I finally realize they meant "build your own" sandwich and that's why every order was different. Oof.
Two things... My dad always told me as a kid, "you can catch a bird by putting salt on it's tail." It wasn't until I was around 40 and realized that of course, if you're close enough to put salt on it's tail, you're close enough to grab the d*mn thing. Duh! The second... we were down the shore on vacay on year and I was about 7 or 8. Its was raining, so we were stuck inside. My dad was reading the Philadelphia Inquirer and I picked up a page and started read. A few minutes in I said, "what does DETTER mined mean?" Dad asks me to spell it, so I do. He starts cracking up and says, "DETERMINED! You know what that means!" Duh. I had never seen it in print before and at that age had never written it either.
How do you catch a wild bird? Put salt on it's tail. How do you catch a tame bird? Tame way.
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I thought that since people said "A cold" and "THE flu" that there was only one flu and it took turns going to everyone.
I thought all ice cream was vanilla ice cream until I realized vanilla ice cream was its own flavor.
That when you see fathers in old movies eating dinner in their underclothes it was because they couldn’t afford to change their work clothes every day or couldn’t wash them. I thought it was just a weird character thing.
When I was little my parents had a car that talked. When the door was open and the key was on it was say "The door is ajar." This really confused me as a 6 year old because while I knew the car ment "the door is open" I didn't understand why it was saying the door was a (glass) jar. My dad really struggled with trying to explain the difference.
I used to think that Pluto was our moon for an embarrassingly long time...
People should be more inquisitive and possibly give a few extra seconds of thought to stuff.
In my early 20's I kept wondering what the meaning was behind the name of the Victoria's Secret store. Then one day It dawned on me that her secret was her lingerie. Yikes!
A dumb one I had as a kid that I held on to for a very long time: my eyesight is crap, I've worn glasses since I was 5. And for so many years I couldn't understand why I had to and hardly anyone else did. I used to think everyone had the same eyesight and I was being picked on.
This post made me feel very smart. I only didn't know the one about nut-busting.
I'm not sure if I'm well-educated, intelligent or just plain heavily experienced (old). None of these held any type of surprise for me. I was surprised by how many people did not know these "common sense" words, phrases, traditions & etc. though!
There's quite a few things here that I didn't know either. Of course I'd never admit it in public. Oops.
When I was little, I always thought that Mabel from Gravity Falls was a robot. Now I think that she got replaced by a robot.
I'm disappointed that no-one mentioned the well-know hymn lyric, "The cross eyed bear for Jesus"
It's Gladly, the cross eyed bear. The bears name is Gladly!
Load More Replies... I had just moved to Nova Scotia and went to the MicMac Mall in Halifax. I assumed it was recognition of the Scots (Mac) and Irish (mic) who settled there. I mean Nova Scotia means New Scotland .Boy, was I wrong. It is named for the First Nation's tribe the Mi'kmaq, pronounced Meeg Maw. Learn something everyday.
That when you tell someone to break a leg, it's because you hope they get cast.
No it's not. It's because of a superstition about wishing an actor good luck.
Load More Replies... Slightly more chilling version; not me, a great aunt. She and her parents only realized she was blind in one eye when they tried to play a game of “I spy” covering up the right eye and she said “don’t be stupid, we have to cover the left eye…”
I was shocked to discover as a teenager that sand dollars were actually alive at some point.
Last year i realized that "cinderella" has the word cinder in it, because the original was called "Aschenbrödel". Asche is ash.... cinder... ok >_>
In Danish we call her Askepot. Pot of ashes.
Load More Replies... I was about 11 when I discovered that my aunt was not called as i always called her. Her brother gave her a nickname that struck so everyone in the family calls her by the nickname.
I had an aunt named Geraldine. She was the youngest & was called ‘Babe’. She lived into her ‘80s & during her funeral the pastor asked for a show of hands of people who knew her real name. There was about 50 people there. I was one of three to raise my hand.
Load More Replies... I grew up with an Auntie Henry and people used to laugh at me and tell me that couldn't be her name, but I insisted it was. Turned out she was Rosamund and Henry was a nickname. Also as a child, didn't realize that my dad and his four sisters had four different fathers. Looking back, it's obvious, but you just don't question stuff as a child!
I learned this year that that one song in Annie doesn't I fact go "It's a hard NOT life" it goes "it's a hard KNOCK life" and honestly I feel like my whole life has been a lie because of it.
My childhood best friend thought deer cross the road at "deer crossing 5 miles signs", thought they lined up in 5 miles. Learned she thought that because she noted it was inconvenient that the deer cross the highway :D
I've been waiting my entire life to actually see a deer crossing the road at one of those signs, so I can take a photo. Wish me luck.
Load More Replies... Okay, here's a historical one for you. In Canada, in colonial times, there was a French area called Acadia. There were problems and a bunch of them decided to WALK to the nearest French settlements ... in Louisiana. In those times, "di" sounds often got changed to "j" sounds, hence "Indian" became "Injun". In the same way, Acadian was pronounced "Acajun", and when one of the Acadians was identified as being "Acajun", others misunderstood it as "He is A CAJUN" rather than "He is Acadian". The Cajuns are the descendants of the French Canadian Acadians who left Canada to resettle in Louisiana.
I worked at a restaurant and people constantly called asking for the "bilgerone" but it was different every time. I assumed it was a special sandwich that used something called "bilgerone". About a month later did I finally realize they meant "build your own" sandwich and that's why every order was different. Oof.
Two things... My dad always told me as a kid, "you can catch a bird by putting salt on it's tail." It wasn't until I was around 40 and realized that of course, if you're close enough to put salt on it's tail, you're close enough to grab the d*mn thing. Duh! The second... we were down the shore on vacay on year and I was about 7 or 8. Its was raining, so we were stuck inside. My dad was reading the Philadelphia Inquirer and I picked up a page and started read. A few minutes in I said, "what does DETTER mined mean?" Dad asks me to spell it, so I do. He starts cracking up and says, "DETERMINED! You know what that means!" Duh. I had never seen it in print before and at that age had never written it either.
How do you catch a wild bird? Put salt on it's tail. How do you catch a tame bird? Tame way.
Load More Replies... I thought that since people said "A cold" and "THE flu" that there was only one flu and it took turns going to everyone.
I thought all ice cream was vanilla ice cream until I realized vanilla ice cream was its own flavor.
That when you see fathers in old movies eating dinner in their underclothes it was because they couldn’t afford to change their work clothes every day or couldn’t wash them. I thought it was just a weird character thing.
When I was little my parents had a car that talked. When the door was open and the key was on it was say "The door is ajar." This really confused me as a 6 year old because while I knew the car ment "the door is open" I didn't understand why it was saying the door was a (glass) jar. My dad really struggled with trying to explain the difference.
I used to think that Pluto was our moon for an embarrassingly long time...
People should be more inquisitive and possibly give a few extra seconds of thought to stuff.
In my early 20's I kept wondering what the meaning was behind the name of the Victoria's Secret store. Then one day It dawned on me that her secret was her lingerie. Yikes!
A dumb one I had as a kid that I held on to for a very long time: my eyesight is crap, I've worn glasses since I was 5. And for so many years I couldn't understand why I had to and hardly anyone else did. I used to think everyone had the same eyesight and I was being picked on.
This post made me feel very smart. I only didn't know the one about nut-busting.
I'm not sure if I'm well-educated, intelligent or just plain heavily experienced (old). None of these held any type of surprise for me. I was surprised by how many people did not know these "common sense" words, phrases, traditions & etc. though!
There's quite a few things here that I didn't know either. Of course I'd never admit it in public. Oops.
When I was little, I always thought that Mabel from Gravity Falls was a robot. Now I think that she got replaced by a robot.
