MetaChat - Late life learning

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04 June 2007

Late life learning Until very recently, I thought a pony was a baby horse. It was also only fairly recently that I realized that an envelope is called an envelope because it envelopes its contents.

What knowledge have you come to shockingly late?

post by: Capn at: 08:13 | 30 comments

Wait, a pony isn't a baby horse???? I seriously never knew that.

posted by fallenposters 04 June | 08:20

A pony is something you want from Mathowie.

Math. Owie! Math hurts.

posted by shane 04 June | 08:20

That Rice Krispies are actually made from rice. Seriously, didn't learn that until a commercial told me. Then the commercial said "what the heck did you think they were made with?" and mocked my stupidity. I haven't forgiven them for rubbing it in.

:P

posted by LunaticFringe 04 June | 08:27

I was a college graduate before I discovered that the US National Anthem does not include the word "donzerly" as in "donzerly light."

posted by mochicrunk 04 June | 08:58

Until a year or so ago, I thouht your shin was the bump coming out of your ankle.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 04 June | 09:21

Until recently, I was convinced the earth revolved around ME. I was pretty disappointed when someone pointed out that it doesn't.

posted by msali 04 June | 09:43

Until I took a college physics class, I thought that the rotation of the earth was the cause of gravity. If the earth stopped rotating, I "knew" we'd all fly off into space.

At the bars this weekend a friend of mine tried to convince me that bobcats are the same as mountain lions. He, of course, was completely and utterly mistaken.

posted by muddgirl 04 June | 09:54

I "knew" we'd all fly off into space.

Well, we would, but not due to lack of gravity, more like slamming on the brakes without wearing a seatbelt.

posted by Capn 04 June | 10:01

That your funny bone is called your funny bone because it's at the end of your humerus.

That green tea has caffeine in it.

(On preview: The best prank I ever pulled was convincing my little sister that airplanes have no gravity, just as we were taxiing for takeoff on her first flight. Yes, I am a bad person. Yes, I expect to pay for the therapy.)

posted by Fuzzbean 04 June | 10:03

These sorts of things happen to me all the time. Mainly it happens with puns though, like not catching Hiro Protagonist's name to be a joke until years after I read Snow Crash.

Or, on the old Milwaukee Brewer's logo, I didn't realize the ball and glove were made from the letters M and B until a year or two ago.

posted by drezdn 04 June | 10:09

If someone is an asshole to me, or mistreats me in some way, that it most likely is not some deficiency in ME, but how that person operates in the world, generally.

It was a relief to come to that realization.

posted by danf 04 June | 10:19

I missed the pun in the Electric Company's character "Fargo North, Decoder" well into adulthood.

posted by plinth 04 June | 10:37

Oddly, I never noticed that people don't have hair directly behind their ears, and made fun of my boyfriend for that. He thought I was completely nuts.

posted by Sil 04 June | 11:07

I can't think of anything recent but it was only a few years ago that I realised that "misled" isn't pronounced "mizzled".

Fallenposters: Ponies are small horses. Foals are baby horses.

posted by deborah 04 June | 11:11

Ooh! Related to deborah's post: For years and years I thought that "melancholy" was pronounced "mechanoly" (mekkanolie). So that stupid joke about what you get when you cross a cocker spaniel with a cantaloupe never made sense.

posted by Fuzzbean 04 June | 11:14

That Times Square in NY was named after the NY Times, which used to be headquartered in the Times building there.

posted by Miko 04 June | 11:56

It was also only fairly recently that I realized that an envelope is called an envelope because it envelopes its contents.

Woah. You just opened up a new age of enlightenment for me.

posted by cmonkey 04 June | 11:56

I can't think of anything recent but it was only a few years ago that I realised that "misled" isn't pronounced "mizzled".

It awften iz down here.

posted by rainbaby 04 June | 12:12

Can I be pedantic and anal and point out that an envelope technically envelops, not 'envelopes'? Thanks.

posted by mudpuppie 04 June | 12:17

In my head I often rhyme "misled" with "rifled," and come up with a mental image of someone "misling" through my stuff. How one "misles," however, I don't know.

I think maybe it's what will o' the wisp do.

posted by Hugh Janus 04 June | 13:21

Besides the U.S. Mint locations in Philadelphia PA, West Point NY, Fort Knox KY, and Washington DC, and the remaining branch Mints in Denver, CO and San Francisco, CA, I knew that there had once been a U.S. gold coin Mint in Dahlonega, GA, but I did not know that there were also once Branch Mints in Charlotte, NC and New Orleans, LA, and I'd forgotten about the one in Carson City, NV entirely.

Now, I want coins with O, C and CC mint marks, too!

posted by paulsc 04 June | 13:40

There's a BBC comedy programme on the radio called I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, and one of the regulars is called Tim Brooke-Taylor. For years, I thought his first name was the rather unusual 'Timbrook'.

I used to think a Platonic relationship was in fact Plateaunic, i.e. it had reached a plateau. Which, to be fair, makes a heckuvalot more intuitive sense than Platonic. To me, at least.

posted by matthewr 04 June | 14:10

It was only recently that I learned that the FedEx logo has an arrow in it.

posted by loresjoberg 04 June | 17:09

I can't tell you how many people think "veal" is a completely seperate animal from a calf. I would kid around and ask them "When have you ever seen a herd of veal?"
Also, I was once told as a kid that butchers added red dye to meat to make it so red. This carried on until I actually started working in a meat department. I kept looking around for the dye before I caught on.

posted by redvixen 04 June | 17:35

Wait, a pony isn't a baby horse???? I seriously never knew that.
For real? I never knew that, either.

I used to think that I was fairly intelligent, just misunderstood. Constant reminders otherwise have enlightened me to the fact that I am, in fact, pretty stupid.

posted by dg 04 June | 17:50

Nah, you're not stupid, just don't know about stuff you're not interested in.

One of the most intelligent people I did not know (until I recently told her) where peanuts come from.

posted by Specklet 04 June | 18:07

Not quite as subtle as the arrow in the FedEx logo, but there's an 11 in the logo for the Big Ten Conference - because there are 11 teams.

posted by youngergirl44 04 June | 21:31

Until a few years ago when I read it on someone's blog (ha) did not know "lefty loosey, righty tighty."

posted by PY 05 June | 02:29

For some reason, I found it fascinating that I'd never heard that Julia Louis Dreyfus is a multi-multi-millionaire heiress.

posted by mrmoonpie 05 June | 12:07

That I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me.

posted by stilicho 05 June | 21:06

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