MetaChat - Embarassing ignorance thread.

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posted by Eideteker 25 October | 14:03

ALSO: Last week, I changed the oil on my motorcycle all by myself, for the first time. And I think I put too much oil in. I asked in an online community and they said to check the sightglass on the engine (no dipstick on this bike) for frothing, because that would mean the oil is not lubricating. So I checked and saw no bubbles and thought to myself, "no signs of cavitation", thinking of the churn of bubbles generated when marine engines reverse. It occurred to me just then that cavitation = the act of making cavities, as in the bubbles are cavities of air in the water.

Simple things like that make me happy.

posted by Eideteker 25 October | 14:08

Heh. Was just talking to gaspode about this the other day. I've lived in the Hampton Roads area for 14 years. We have both a Norfolk and a Suffolk. It wasn't until about a year ago that I realized that the names literally referred to "North Folk" and "South Folk". Um. Duh.

posted by mike9322 25 October | 14:10

I just learned that until the 1970s (!), the US government was taking American Indian children away from their parents and putting them in boarding schools for up to eight years. I don't understand how I had never even heard of this at all.

Less politically: When I was little, I was singing "Tomorrow" one day and got to the line "Come what may." For some reason, I couldn't parse the syllables into English, so I asked my mom what it meant.

"Come what may," she said, "it's like... que sera sera."

"Oh," I said. "So it's French?"

I had been taking French classes before school, and "comme ouette mai" sounded perfectly plausible to my ear.

My mother looked at me. "Yes, occhi," she said, very serious. "It's French."

My college roommate had a great singing voice and loved showtunes. We started singing "Tomorrow" during my freshman year. Suddenly the lightbulb goes off.

So it took me almost 20 years to realize that "come what may" was English.

posted by occhiblu 25 October | 14:10

I think I was in my 20s when I finally figured out that "Arkansas" was the same state as (hearing) "Arkensaw".

posted by gaspode 25 October | 14:16

Nothing. I am all-knowing.

posted by jonmc 25 October | 14:25

(actually, as a kid for some reason I got it in my head that Thomas Edison (along with all his various and sundry achievements) was also a President Of The United States. I think it was because his name sounded 'Presidential,' to my young ear. It wasn't until I had a homework assignment about him in 4th grade that I was disabused of this notion)

posted by jonmc 25 October | 14:28

I just had one of these moments yesterday. I was recommending the Tom Swift series of books in the green and looking for a link to add. Looking at the Wiki entry, I found out that there was no real "Victor Appleton." According to the Wikipedia, "The original books were outlined by Edward Stratemeyer and his Stratemeyer Syndicate, written by ghostwriters and credited to their house name Victor Appleton."

I think a bit of my childhood has been lost.

posted by Otis 25 October | 14:38

When I was quite young (4 or so), I thought you could grow any kind of tree you wanted, if you planted the right thing. So, I planted popsicle sticks to grow Popsicle Trees, and the wrappers for cheese & crackers (the kind with the red stick) to grow Cheese & Cracker Trees.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 25 October | 14:42

I thought Alaska was an island until my mid 20s.

posted by jrossi4r 25 October | 14:42

The Stratemeyer Syndicate was also responsible for Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, IIRC.

I'll never forget the day I connected the name of Times Square to the New York Times. Yeah. Times Square. Of course.

posted by Miko 25 October | 14:44

I thought you could grow any kind of tree you wanted, if you planted the right thing. So, I planted popsicle sticks to grow Popsicle Trees, and the wrappers for cheese & crackers (the kind with the red stick) to grow Cheese & Cracker Trees.

What a silly thing to believe.

*digs up porno mags planted in yard*

posted by jonmc 25 October | 14:45

When I was five, I read the word "stomach" and thought it was prounounced "smootch". I was too impatient to sound it out (still am an impatient reader) and I'd just gloss it over, not really understanding what the writer was referring to. One day, I was reading aloud to my mom when she stopped me and said "wait, the blob of jam fell on her what?" "Her smootch," I said. She looked at the book and said "Oh, stomach. That word is stomach." I finally really looked at the word and felt a very flooish Specklet indeed.

posted by Specklet 25 October | 14:59

You may also be amazed to learn that fireproofed steel is not actually fireproof, depending on who you believe.

posted by appidydafoo 25 October | 15:06

My most recent was passed on by the above "flooish" Specklet -- which is that the sweat bands athletes' wear on their wrists aren't intended to keep their wrists from sweating, but are used for wiping sweat off the forehead and face.

posted by mudpuppie 25 October | 15:11

I'll never forget the day I connected the name of Times Square to the New York Times. Yeah. Times Square. Of course.

oh

posted by gaspode 25 October | 15:19

Flooish, hee hee!

posted by Specklet 25 October | 15:21

Herald Square, too, pode.

posted by jonmc 25 October | 15:22

but are used for wiping sweat off the forehead and face.
Well I'll be...

Times Square. Of course.
How 'bout that!

Please tell me more, people. (And I'm totally holding out hope that TPS is wrong about the cheese and cracker trees.)

posted by jrossi4r 25 October | 15:28

Growing up Catholic in Buffalo, I thought *everyone* was Catholic. When I learned that JFK was the first and only Catholic president, I couldn't understand how that could be.

And re: Norfolk & Suffolk- I remember hearing the place names in England that end in -sex: Sussex, Essex, Middlesex, all those. I naturally thought that's where oversexed people lived or something. Then one day, I realized... OH! Sussex = South Section, Essex = East Section, Middlesex = Middle Section, etc.

posted by Doohickie 25 October | 15:29

Please tell me more, people.

There's no Sergio Valente, either.

posted by jonmc 25 October | 15:32

Hey, did y'all know that each New England state up here yonder has it's own set of Exits? I sure didn't, and took Exit 2 three times on the Maine side trying to get to Exeter, NH. Imagine my surprise when I was summarily rounded back to my house!

Doo dee doo!

posted by Lipstick Thespian 25 October | 15:53

mudpuppie - sweat bands are also used to keep sweat from dripping down your arm an onto your hands.

I just learned this summer that fire escapes are specifically made for emergency use when there's a fire. I always thought they were convienient stairs for people to smoke on, get to the street faster, or sing "Moon River" on, and that landlords put them in to jack rent up.

posted by Hellbient 25 October | 15:58

I'd been driving for well over ten years before I realised those black and yellow striped signs you see on bridge abutments and traffic islands:
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come in left and right hand versions and that you are supposed to keep right of the left hand version and keep left of the right hand version.

posted by Mitheral 25 October | 16:16

I went to a preschool where every Friday they served grape juice and this yellow eggy bread, and we made three-cornered jam pastries. Took me until at least fifth grade to realize that preschool had been Jewish. (>_

posted by casarkos 25 October | 16:21

Okay, a real one - after years of knowing about the Butthole Surfers, at some point I realized that butthole surfing is merely the innocent act of sliding down a banister.

posted by Hellbient 25 October | 16:29

Seriously, that's what a butthole surfer is? I had no clue. That's awesome! I am sheepish to say that up until my late teens I thought Led Zeppelin was an individual artist with a name like Dizzy Gillespie, Mutt Lange or Frank Zappa for that matter. I know, I know... My parents were so disappointed that afternoon...

posted by hemanhasamullet 25 October | 16:59

I recently found out that the original kanji for Karate was "Chinese Hand" but it was changed to the kanji for "Empty Hand". But because it's Japanese, the pronunciation remained the same.

posted by tommasz 25 October | 17:03

I think it's worth mentioning, as well, that one should never be embarrassed by ignorance. You should be embarrassed for having pride in your ignorance.

posted by Eideteker 25 October | 17:16

Blimey, I'm having a lot of ignorance corrected by this thread - Arkansas being the same place as 'Arkensaw' was defo a surprise.

Then one day, I realized... OH! Sussex = South Section, Essex = East Section, Middlesex = Middle Section, etc.

Sorry to do this, but the 'sex' bit doesn't mean 'section, it's from 'Seaxe', as in Saxons - the old counties are (kind of) equivalent to the Heptarchy, the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (the 'folk' in Norfolk and Suffolk were Angles, like their pals in East Anglia).

posted by jack_mo 25 October | 17:55

GWAR named themselves after the acronym for God What A Racket.

I learned that front air bags have been standard equipment in all cars since model year 1998 from the link given in this thread.

This thread reminds me of Things I Figured Out by that guy from cockeyed.com.

posted by Rhomboid 25 October | 18:10

I was 30 years old, and had more than a half million frequent flyer miles, before I learned it wasn't only Bernoulli's principle keeping airplanes in the sky.

posted by paulsc 25 October | 19:11

I looked for pepperoncini in the produce isle before being set straight.

posted by rainbaby 25 October | 19:18

I was a teenager before I knew an anchiovy was a fish. I thought it was some sort of onion or something. I was even more squicked by the fact it was a fish-"Who puts fish on a pizza!"

posted by redvixen 25 October | 19:34

I am learning almost every week a new thing *not* to put down the garbage disposal. Last night it was asparagus stems - won't do that again. I've yet to learn what a disposal is really for, when there are so many things one can't introduce to it.

posted by vers 25 October | 19:57

I was introducing a professor to a class the other day, and had a copy of his resume, which said he'd attended "duquesne university". Thank the gods I asked my co-teacher how to pronounce it, because I had never connected the university I know by sound ("Doo-kaine") to this spelling... Just had not thought about it.

But it reminded me of another one like that - it wasn't until bill clinton was quoted in the NYTimes as saying he was sorry to have "misled" the american people, that I made the connection that there is no verb "to misle"... I had already heard him pronounce it, so I knew what he meant, and, oh, that's how you'd spell that too, isn't it! (there was a mefi thread on this once)

posted by mdn 25 October | 22:23

mdn, I used to read it as past tense of "misle" as well.

posted by occhiblu 26 October | 00:53

Until not too long ago, I was sure the word was spelled renumeration, and that — despite having seen remuneration more times than I could count — it had to be wrong.

And I used to be an editor (hangs head).

posted by rob511 26 October | 03:26

Misheard lyrics department: The Stones 19th Nervous Breakdown line, "your father's still perfecting ways of making sealing wax..." I always thought it was "ceiling", and for awhile it made sense because who the hell waxes their ceiling?!

posted by chewatadistance 26 October | 07:07

I was a teenager before I knew an anchiovy was a fish. I thought it was some sort of onion or something.

I was in my twenties when I was flabbergasted to discover that a tuna is a huge fish. I figured they were at most trout sized.

posted by Mitheral 26 October | 09:05

There's a lot of people out there who don't realize that veal and calf are the same animal. I'm always tempted to ask them if they've ever seen a herd of veal.

posted by redvixen 26 October | 16:36

25 October 2006