Things you were shockingly old when you learned

xpost Tell that to Lai Mpun, the lead singer of Bangkok's Phleng Chat.

I am 33 and didn't know any of these things. Wait - how the hell DOES a candle work?!

Same with Sandy Shaw.

i don't know how to explain it but i used to think chickens had a really weird way of "mating", something to do with the rooster's legs. (!!?!?) :)

I thought penguins were as tall as humans until that march of the penguins movie

"that SHIFT + 6 = ^. I think I figured it out a month or so ago. I always wondered how people got that character."

^^^Dude, you beat me by a month. Thanks!

I once spent a half hour trying to eject a cd from a Mac before someone finally told me there's an eject button on the keyboard. I was going through all these crazy menus and preferences...

I think I was like 16 or 17 when I learned that cows and bulls were the male and female versions of the same animal and not two distinct animals.

What sort of seemingly basic facts did it take you a surprisingly long time for you to learn?

― filthy dylan, Wednesday, November 12, 2008 5:30 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I thought penguins were as tall as humans until that march of the penguins movie

loooool one of my friends thought this and it was since passed into running joke territory.

I think I've done that Mac eject button thing too :(

Pronounced lapels like 'labels' for years until corrected but happily don't dress well enough to use it often

My girlfriend was shocked to learn, at the age of 33, that a 'Flea Circus' is actually a rather charming mechanical toy, and is in no way operated by any parasitic insects.

Ismael, at the age of 32, is shocked to learn the same thing. This thread is getting embarrassing

WAT! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flea_circus

I thought penguins were as tall as humans until that march of the penguins movie

one of my friends thought this and it was since passed into running joke territory

no but seriously, what is this about?

i mean i can see that there's rarely anything to size them against in the big white antarctic, but why would anyone then automatically think okay here's a bird i could play tag with

u could still play tag w/it tho

But you could make the same assumption with ostriches in the big yellow desert (or wherever they live), and in that case you'd be right!

I'm still in touch with several grown adults who genuinely believe there's 'something' to supernatural claims about ouija boards, despite its fairly obvious origins in parlour games / illusions which utilised the (admittedly fucking spooky) ideomotor effect.

aw no-one said 'where babies come from'

I've had a lot of experiences in my adult life with mispronouncing words I understood as part of written text, but hadn't heard aurally in the context of conversation etc. For example, I was well into my twenties before I knew the word "vehement" wasn't pronounced veh-hee-ment. I wish others would politely correct you when you do that instead of letting you blindly sound like an idiot.

I'm a bit like that, but now I'm in the habit of saying works incorrectly, I can't get out of it. Canal is not pronounced can-el, but there's fuck all I can do about it now.

^ This happens to me all the time too - so much so that I actually now find it quite amusing when I realise, midway through a sentence, that a word I've never heard before is looming at the end. I suppose that people who talk a lot, rather than reading, must find the same with spelling. It only annoys me when some moron uses it as an opportunity to score cheap points (sadly fairly often)

I was going to start a thread like this, but it was going to be more about 'life lessons' that took you forever to learn, rather than trivia.

Anyway it's taken me this long to fully realize how unreliable first impressions can be when it comes to people.

but why would anyone then automatically think okay here's a bird i could play tag with

haha

TAL have an episode on this in the "best of" section on their wesite. people who thought unicorns were real, etc., lots of awkward silences at cocktail parties: good stuff.

i like to tag birds. (runs)

There's a penguin here and he wants to say "you didn't touch me ner ner ner"

I thought penguins went "weh weh weh"

I'm still in touch with several grown adults who genuinely believe there's 'something' to supernatural claims about ouija boards, despite its fairly obvious origins in parlour games / illusions which utilised the (admittedly fucking spooky) ideomotor effect.

― Huey in Bristol (Huey in Melbourne), Wednesday, November 12, 2008 7:08 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you couldnt get me in the same room as a ouija board

I was about 35 when I figured out Open Sesame = Open Says Me.

i used to think HAZCHEM was a foreign word for danger like Achtung

I just figured out, like 2 days ago, that the lyrics are "highway to the danger zone"

(until then, thought they were "I went to to the danger zone")

ooh i like that

lol mandee those are even better

Nothing, as I'm not shockingly old.

Misheard lyrics are always better. The singer of my old band had this (intentionally) corny line that went "sleep all day til the telephone ring / head to the bar and shake that thing", the latter half of which I always thought was "head to the barber and shave that thing".

My friend always thought that Op Ivy song Take Warning went "skate boarding", which is way better.

Same with Sandy Shaw.

Ok I sounded this out several times in several different ways and I still don't get how this is a pun. Help?

I think that 'Shaw' is meant to sound like 'shore' - I don't hear it either

Sandy Shore.

Shaw is pronounced exactly the same as Shore, in England.

hows it pron in USA?

Well I guess it must be different, if people are having problems hearing it? Dunno.

I didn't even know it was her real name, tho.

wasn't, rather

I knew someone who, if my friend is to believed, is said to have uttered at age 18 "wait, you can't get pregnant if your clothes are on, right" while making out.

'Shore' rhymes with 'oar'. 'Shaw' is the same as the first three letters in 'shopping' xp

i'm loving this thread. so many discoveries!

WAT! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flea_circus

― Øystein, Wednesday, November 12, 2008 1:59 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

http://www.noonco.com/flea/movie.htm

My flabber hasn't been gasted quite like this in a long time :-/

xp I only got that Sandie Shaw pun because I once attended a seminar about legal practice given by an English professor who made a big thing out of the difference between 'law' and 'lore'. I didn't have a clue what he was talking about

Wait - how the hell DOES a candle work?!

I know, right?!!??!

i too only figured out lipps, inc. lately. also, fear's lee ving. it never occurred to me until i was driving in the car one day and bam.

I just now got Lipps, Inc. I say in my head "Lipps Incorporated" whenever I read that.

I was pretty close to thirty when I was told that "prevalent" is not pronounced pree-VAY-lent. I liked my version better. "The PREE-VAY-LENT opinion in this country is that Barack Obama will be a force of change."

The icon you see when a page or graphic is loading, usually a spinning ball or wheel, is called a Throbber.

medieval estonia was inhabited by a tribe called the chuds

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GOlgpWcXEAAoxUN?format=jpg&name=medium

“punic” in punic wars just comes from the latin word for phoenician (punicus).

also the place name “cartagena” is carthage tho it now seems sooo obvious. i knew ‘carthago delenda est,’ but never figgered cartagena.

Didn't know about Viking settlements in Sicily/southern Italy - although looking at the Wikipedia page, that map is a little disingenuous. It was the Normans who invaded Italy, around the same time as the Norman conquest of England. By that time, they were pretty much gallicised and spoke French.

The icon you see when a page or graphic is loading, usually a spinning ball or wheel, is called a Throbber.

More from the fun fact department, but… there are 41 (or maybe 42) buildings in Manhattan that have their own Zip Code. And that’s not the +4 Zip Code extension, that’s the traditional 5-digit Zip Code.

It's Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, not Bob Willis

how did you not know that?

I have no idea! I guess the double Ls threw me off, and while I have been aware of both the man and his music for most of my life (thanks, Bob Dylan), I'm not sure I have ever heard his name spoken aloud. I'd have gone on believing that his last name was "Willis" if I didn't notice the spine of some Rhino comp I just found

>>>Giorgio Moroder composed and produced "Danger Zone" and "Take My Breath Away"<<<

Perhaps everyone knows this; I didn't.

"I Want Candy" by Bow Wow Wow is a cover

yeah its by the Strangeloves 3 brothers from Australia

It was also a hit for the Count Bishops in 1978.

... well, not sure if it was a hit but they got on TOTP with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HntZDao0Tkg

Singer had been with these guys before. They were from Australia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0ZbENMWVzM

The Strangeloves were not 3 brothers from Australia. They were a fake studio band created by three NY songwriter/producers including Richard Gottehrer, who has one of the longest running careers in the music biz.

Bert Berns too. Insane careers. And not based on some dancer but the Terry Southern novel Candy.

that the count bishops had hits

They didn't.

A surprising place to learn some of the history of I Want Candy is the Astral Weeks episode of The History of Rock-n-Roll in 500 songs, because co-songwriter Bert Berns was deeply involved in Van Morrison's early career, from Them to Brown Eyed Girl. You also learn a bunch about Neil Diamond. All before getting to Astral Weeks itself.

https://500songs.com/podcast/episode-170-astral-weeks-by-van-morrison/

*eighteen minutes shockingly older* that the count bishops didn't have hits

The Strangeloves were not 3 brothers from Australia. They were a fake studio band created by three NY songwriter/producers including Richard Gottehrer, who has one of the longest running careers in the music biz.

― dan selzer, Friday, May 31, 2024 11:27 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

whose press bio was that they were 3 brothers who grew up on a sheep farm in Australia.
Apparently they couldn't do a good British accent convincingly.

Yup.

wow, so many versions of I Want Candy! We can add Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, Melanie C, Aaron Carter and the Candy Girls.

The Stray Cats are/were American.
I'd folded them in with all the terrible Ted-revival Brit-rockers at the turn of the '80s.

Except the Stray Cats were great!

How do you feel about The Polecats?

Brian Setzer (no relation) had previously been in an arty New York area new wave band called the Bloodless Pharoahs who played Maxs and similar clubs.

They were strayt outta Massapequa iirc.

"Font" is related to 'foundry', where early type sets were cast in metal