As Voltaire, an 18th-century writer, historian, and philosopher, said in one of his most popular quotes: “Common sense is not so common.” Although the meaning behind the saying seems fairly simple, each person’s common knowledge is uniquely their own, making it less shared than we might imagine.
This was perfectly illustrated in a popular Reddit thread, where user Relation-Major731 asked fellow netizens to share some obvious things that they had only just realized. From finding out that pickles are pickled cucumbers to learning that coffee causes anxiety, these pieces of information were discovered by people a bit later in life.
And there’s nothing wrong with that, as we should never stop learning. So, let’s all put on our thinking hats and dive into some common but not-so-common facts in this judgment-free zone!
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I'm face blind, and I just found out how bad it is. Apparently my UPS driver who I see every day at work is the guy who grew up down the street from me, and I thought they were two different people because the UPS guy wears a hat.
Prosopagnosia is a nightmare. I only realised a very recently that the reason I watch lots of animated kids films (apart from the lack of violence), is because it’s easy to tell the characters apart. Give me a film with 5 men in their 30s and I have no clue who is who. I didn’t recognise my colleague of 4 months in reception last year. Thankfully, she was understanding when I explained.
I learned in therapy last year that I can ask for things I need and things I want. I was 42 years old at the time.
If you grew up in an environment where you were shamed for having wants and needs, this is genuinely tough to un-learn.
The reason why we might overlook what seems to be the most obvious thing in the world is the phenomenon known as inattentional blindness. It happens when we fail to see something we didn't expect, usually because our attention is focused entirely somewhere else.
This is particularly true for objects that are very unlikely to appear, like a unicorn for example. If you saw one, you would be more likely to believe that what you witnessed was a white horse. And the horn must have been just a trick of the light.
The exact reason why this happens is not yet fully understood. However, such a lack of visual awareness shows that our attentional and processing abilities are limited. Therefore, our brain finds ways of filtering out distractions to focus on what’s most important at any moment.
In Greek alphabet we have the letters Ο (Omicron) and Ω(Omega).
It took me 37 years to realize that they actually mean O-small and O-big.
Vampires don’t have a reflection because mirrors used to be made using silver and it was the silver that wouldn’t reflect the vampires image
So, I can’t tell if it’s a vampire now because they will have a reflection? That’s a whole new nightmare unlocked!
The phrase "pitch black" is referring to the substance "pitch", which is very black in color. I had always considered "pitch" in that context to be akin to "very", like how some otherwise archaic words survive in idioms.
Another reason is that we tend to ignore something that isn’t entirely relevant to the situation or won’t help us understand or carry out a task at hand. For example, a gorilla playing a basketball game doesn’t fit into our idea of a basketball game, making it less noticeable when it appears.
Some researchers also suggest that memory limitations might contribute to this. Several experiments have found that people often perceive certain information, they just don’t remember seeing it when asked about it as it wasn’t stored in the part of the brain responsible for short-term memory.
Tamagotchi are in eggs because they're tamago (egg) + Tomodachi (friend)
I grew up around Doctor Who but never actually watched it for the longest time. My grandma (and apparently my great aunt way before I was born) loved Doctor Who, so it was just always around and I never gave any thought to the name of the show.
And then finally: “Oh my god it’s called Doctor Who because nobody knows his real name and they just call him The Doctor.” F*****g shoot me dead or something I was so embarrassed.
Interestingly, the phenomenon of perceptual blindness is often employed by illusionists who trick the audience’s consciousness by diverting their attention to particular details. For instance, when a person is preoccupied with counting cards that the magician is dealing, they won’t notice that those cards have been set up or arranged in a specific order.
Or if a magician is taking a card from the top of the deck and using it to point to another one on the table, the audience won’t see that they returned it to the bottom of the deck because their attention was focused elsewhere.
That my casual coffee drinking habit (3-4 coffees/day) is causing the anxiety I've been experiencing for some time. Now I drink one coffee around lunch time, only if I feel I need it and I feel better.
Figured out in college that there isn't "cup cake mix" in the baking aisle. It's just regular cake mix.
I spent forever looking up and down the shelves for "cup cake mix" only to be informed by a nice grandmotherly woman that it is just cake mix put in little cups.
We went to London in primary school and went to the Houses of Parliament. I’ve only just realised they say “ayes” and “nos” when referring to how people vote. Not “eyes” and “nose” I thought it was a covert way to vote by turning your head a certain way or something. I only figured it out when I was watching a video with captions….
Took me til my freshman year of college before I realized pickles were pickled cucumbers and not their own, unique vegetable. I thought the way you pickled other things was you put them in pickle juice.
We were having breakfast at IHOP. Just got thinking, and i said, out loud, "i wonder what happened to the International House of Pancakes? They used to be all over them place. "
I am not smrt. 😳
I saw a video where a man said he didn’t know banks don’t keep your money. He’s been giving the bank rare coins thinking they put it in HIS account. (I think he thought it was like a safe deposit box)
So how did he think debit cards work? Every time he made a purchase someone got into his little box and took out the exact amount??
this was most likely before debit cards were used everywhere to pay for anything.
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I remember a retired bank manager who had work in a small rural town telling me that the pensioners would come in at the begining of the month, when the state paid the pensions to withdraw all the pension to the penny. Count it to make sure I was all there and then deposit it back. All to make sure it was correct.
Oh no, surely he explained himself during the process at least once. They could have caught it.
Some banks actually work like that. You rent a safe storage box to put your valuables in.
But that's a different process. You physically put stuff in your safe deposit box yourself and keep a key.
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Corn kernels are the seeds.
Wanted to grow corn for fall last year, bought a pack of corn seeds only to realize the kernels from the cob were the seeds... felt pretty dumb just realizing this at 33 years old.
Growing up, my grandmother always used to tell me "Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite," and it always sounded like a quaint, old-timey saying to me. It wasn't until a recent infestation scare in my apartment complex that I learned bedbugs are real critters, and not just a part of a nursery rhyme meant to tuck kids in at night. Talk about an epiphany that itches in retrospect.
That eating the crust of bread doesn’t make my teeth strong as my grandpa and mom always told me
That's silly. Everyone know it makes your hair curly. Just like my mum told us!
That placing an onion slice or lettuce leaf on the bottom hamburger bun keeps your freshly-grilled burger from soaking the bun.
At the risk of being horribly misunderstood, I would rather have my bun soaked with meat juice
That “evergreen” trees/plants are forever green, as in they don’t lose their leaves in the winter. Never broke down the word “ever-green”
I always find it funny that the simple and obvious term "evergreen" is the official botanical term for plants (primarily trees and shrubs) that stay green all year, while the term for plants that change color and lose their leaves is "deciduous", a not so obvious term that means "falling off"
Half & half is literally half heavy cream mixed with half whole milk. Felt like a real dummy when I learned that one last week.
Hot water can leave your hair heat damaged. I always denied having heat damaged hair because I don't use heated styling tools. I never occurred to me that washing my hair, in my one degree below steam shower, was causing heat damage 🥴
They’re called hula hoops because when you use them it looks like you’re dancing the hula.
A few years ago, I realized that Paris Hilton was famous because her family owned Hilton hotels. I never put two and two together before that and I felt like an idiot.
My father herded caribou in Alaska from heli’s as a young man.
For 24 years I thought the fibre “velvet” literally came from cartilaginous antlers, as it’s referred to as velvet in the industry for its soft feel.
I’ve shared this lie with hundreds of people.
“Pearl clutching” references woman putting their hand to their chest (in supposed shock) while *wearing* the pearls. the pearls aren’t just in their pockets or something.
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
Did you know that Go-Gurt is *just* yogurt?
My Latin teacher had to point out that the Roman God Jupiter was just the Romans saying Father Zeus: Zeus Pater, with a bad accent.
Was in my early 60's when it finally occurred to me what the occupation of Miss Kitty on the television show "Gunsmoke" really was.
Had a coworker who would use the term "just assume" rather than "just as soon". As in I'd just as soon go home as stay here. Made no sense to me but I guess that's just how he'd always heard it.
It took me an embarrassing long time to realize a cupcake was basically a cake in a cup. And deer "points" was a scoring thing it the number of horns (that was a fun convo at work).
My Latin teacher had to point out that the Roman God Jupiter was just the Romans saying Father Zeus: Zeus Pater, with a bad accent.
Was in my early 60's when it finally occurred to me what the occupation of Miss Kitty on the television show "Gunsmoke" really was.
Had a coworker who would use the term "just assume" rather than "just as soon". As in I'd just as soon go home as stay here. Made no sense to me but I guess that's just how he'd always heard it.
It took me an embarrassing long time to realize a cupcake was basically a cake in a cup. And deer "points" was a scoring thing it the number of horns (that was a fun convo at work).
