Things you were shockingly old when you learned

egg timers are timers for eggs, not necessarily timers shaped like eggs.

lol

ooh that's a good one

Taquito is a good one. But then etymological revelations of the English language still semi-regularly knock me on my ass.

I think of an egg timer as being a little version of an hourglass

Speaking of, I just realized that HOURglass is an inaccurate description of basically every hourglass I've ever encountered.

See? It's troublingly easy to blow my mind.

I'm struggling to imagine an egg timer shaped like an egg

[does one google]

wtf, America

we’re a very literal conglomeration of people from the diaspora

lol

this is an egg timer btw

https://groceries.morrisons.com/productImages/380/380070011_0_640x640.jpg

"Vintage" means the process of making wine (and, by association the year in which that process takes place); from the French, obv. It does not mean "old". When it's used to mean old (vintage cars, vintage clothing) it's being used metaphorically; vintage wine is not simply old wine.

that's good, makes perfect sense but never considered it

Yeah that's a great example

"Unequivocally" does not have the letter "b" in it. Feeling pretty stupid atm

Trying to figure out where a 'b' would even go. 'Unequivocallyb?'

(Not goosing you, btw. I both said and wrote 'unwieldly' well into adulthood.)

thread delivers

guessing "Unequivocably"

Unbequivocally

Suddenly hearing the word as uttered by Mushmouth.

Last night I learned that Thandie Newton, of whom I've ~been aware~ as an actress since Mission: Impossible 2, pronounces her name "Tandy." Boy, would I have had egg on MY face if I ever met her.

woah

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket

Damn that took me 34 years

I found out pretty late in life that "mores" (as in "social mores") is the word that rhymes with "morays," not a word that rhymes with "s'mores."

yeah i think it is often spelt with an acute accent over the e

I'm certain that I only know the correct pronunciation because of an ethics class I took.

Character is the most important thing of all

That's a moray

"when an eel bites your heel and the pain makes you squeal..."

stevolende, I guess that is so, but it isn't strictly speaking correct, is it? The word is an import from latin, not French.

social moires

social moires

blurred lines...

and relevant xkcd is https://xkcd.com/1814/

Perhaps relatedly? A few years ago, there was a news story on the radio about the plight of the cops in Egypt. Sounded like things were pretty bad for Egyptian cops.

I'm like huh? until I realized they were saying Copts.

Earlier today I was on a work conference call with some people in India, and we were discussing a business proposal where everything was expressed in dollars and needed to be changed to rubies.

Rubies? Are we seriously talking about being paid with chests full of gemstones? WTF? Is this like a fairy tale or something?

Then I realized everybody had been saying "rupees."

don’t go to vietnam

That "arms akimbo" means hands on hips with elbows out (the George Reeves Superman stance), not arms flailing about.

That the name pronounced "al-o-WISH-us" is the same word as the name spelled "Aloysius."

How did your head spell it before?

My name is Alloy Zeus, look upon my works, ye mighty...

Until the moment of revelation (which may have come while reading the back of an Elvis Costello album), I'd never really thought about how al-o-WISH-us was spelled.

Marsala and masala are not at all the same thing.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dd-XieyVQAAcWu6.jpg:small

comes up on jeopardy every so often

What do you call a dude with the misfortune to still be named “Elbridge” in 2018

Probably “Gary”

wait the *pronunciation* of 'gerrymander' comes up on jeopardy?

it's a hard game

pronounced jame

Only recently occurred to me that the name of the Bumper-to-Bumper auto parts chain refers to what's between the front bumper and back bumper, not in the human centipedal use that traffic reporters employ during a jam.

on a similar tip, I used to think collision centers were places where they conducted crash tests, not auto body shops where they repair the damage caused by motor vehicle collisions