Things you were shockingly old when you learned

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?

How a candle works.

Practically everything.

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

DO you have a Mac?

The best things about macs is that making any character is stupid easy.

¢™
øºÖØ°

&¶¶¶¶¶¶

!

That (most) BMWs are named according to engine size (I was a car freak as a child but never knew this until being informed by a German flatmate while I was a PhD student).

i.e. 318 = 3 series 1.8 litre engine etc.

Didn't know that black and green olives are identical, just different stage of maturity, until a few months ago.

Didn't realise that Adam Ant was a pun, until a year or so ago. Likewise Lipps Inc.

I've got a mac and I still don't know how to do any of, um, ^ those ^

I end up going to wikipedia and copy-and-pasting when I want unusual characters

The cows-and-bulls thing, plus Adam Ant, are the only things on this thread that I do know

how to cook an artichoke properly

(a julia child recipe steered me right)

How to tie my shoes (velcro, you see..)

Didn't realise that Adam Ant was a pun, until a year or so ago.

^^^ this. Same with Sandy Shaw.

Fay Fife of the Rezillos.

(i.e. it's a pun on "I am from the town of Fife, my good fellow" in broad scots)

What's the Adam Ant pun? Adam Ant = adamant? If so... pretty lame pun.

That's it.

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")

lol

Haha!

Traffic has a song called "Roll Right Stones" which is named after the Rollright Stones which is a set of megalithic monuments which I've never heard of until 10 minutes ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollright_Stones

I fancy I’ll open a stationer’s
Stock quaint notepads for weekend pagans
While you were out at The Rollright Stones
I came and set fire to your shed
‘Cos you probably work at an all-night garage
You probably work at an all-night garage
You probably work at an all-night garage
With Talk Radio on

Flip Wilson coined “what you see is what you get”

The voice saying “number nine… number nine…” in “Revolution 9” is not John Lennon.

It doesn't sound anything like John Lennon!

These are not things that I just learned, but these are things my wife (who is about the same age as me) just learned in quick succession last night while we were watching the basketball game:

1) Knight Rider was about a guy and his talking crime-solving car.
2) David Hasselhoff was famous in Germany not for acting but for his singing.
3) The apes in the Planet of the Apes movies talk.

David Hasselhoff is also famous in Germany for believing that his execrable song 'Looking for Freedom' contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, and then singing the song perched on a crane above the Wall on New Year's Eve that year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ2Sgd9sc0M

I'd give him more credit than Reagan

It doesn't sound anything like John Lennon!

I always thought it was Lennon.

I woulda thought it was George before I thought it was John...

... George Martin!

I'd give him more credit than Reagan.

Oh God, yeah. I was living in West Berlin in 1987 when Reagan came to give his 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this Wall!' speech. I remember that Berliners of all political persuasions were irritated by yet another politician flying in for a self-serving soundbite and then clearing off again.

Definitely more than Thatcher.

Thatcher's only contribution to German reunification was to try to block it.

The Young Ones' Vyvian is named after Vivian Stanshal.

OK now that is a neat tidbit I never knew!

It doesn't sound anything like John Lennon

I’m an idiot! What can I say? All British accents sound the same.

Undeniably true

I disagree. I got really good at locating English accents by inflexion etc when I was hitching. Think I was getting down to nearest large town at least. There are a lot of them

I think I’ve trained myself to recognize a Manchurian accent from all the musicians I listen to who are from there.

Mancunian

The Mancunian candidates

I only learned the phrase “May December” (or “May September”) because of the new Todd Haynes film

When I heard the phrase I assumed the phrase referred to the school year: “a teacher dates a student over the summer holiday”, for example

I did not realize that it referred to the months of the year as a metaphor for the stages in one’s life

Yesterday the meaning of this phrase became clear to me after an unrelated google

The funny thing is that I’m a fan of Kurt Weill

I used to accompany my friend on piano covering Threepenny Opera songs and others

My stage name was Pfalz Gewürstraminer

And certain songs, like “Surabaya Johnny”, I just accepted that it was somewhat lost in translation

But “The September Song” never made any sense to me, because I didn’t get this “months = stages of one’s life” metaphor

When you don’t get the metaphor, it really is just a strange thing to hear Frank Sinatra belting “SEPTEMBER! NOVEMBER!” with the drama all dialled up

Anyway well it makes sense now

I figured out September Song after many listens to Lost in the Stars but it does seem to be a conceit that resonated more in the past. Just about everyone used to wind down a lot in their sixties, and nowadays who knows how many decades you got after middle age?

Sinatra recorded that whole September of My Years album when he was only 49!

life expectancy in the US in 1965 was 70 years. september is the ninth month of the year. (70/12)*9 = 52, so not far off in fact

wait, what's september gurls about? December boys got it bad because they are about to die?

It was inspired by three of the women in Chilton's life who he was thinking about at the time, including his ex-wife, having birthdays in September.[5]

Alex Chilton was a big astrology guy

He liked things enigmatically literally didn't he? Sister Lovers was him and abandmate dating a pair of sisters though it sounds like it should be a poetic allusion dunnit? may just be later valorisation?

Chilton born on Dec. 28 too.

Yeah I always assumed “December boy’s got it bad” was singular not plural

I only got the September song metaphor because my mom used to play “April Come She Will” a lot when I was a kid

I just learned the song "Popcorn" by Hot Butter was first done by a guy named Gershon Kingsley in 1969.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htuL6mvlTgk

TIL that Peggy Lee substantially rewrote the lyrics for her version of “Fever,” making it very quite different from the Little Willie John original.

TIL = within the past week

TIL = within the past week

TWIL

Didn't realise that the original letter locations on a typewriter were changed so that the word 'typewriter' could be typed with keys that are situated only on the upper row.

When Sholes sold his typewriter design to the Remington company, Remington engineers made an additional change to the layout by transferring the letter “R” to the upper row so their typewriter salesmen could quickly type the word “typewriter” to potential clients by locating all of the necessary letters in the upper row.

The use of the word piracy to copy someone’s work goes back to the 17th century.

When I heard the phrase I assumed the phrase referred to the school year: “a teacher dates a student over the summer holiday”, for example

I did not realize that it referred to the months of the year as a metaphor for the stages in one’s life

tbf the song’s lyrics deliberately touch on both these meanings.. “oh the days dwindle down, to a precious few” etc. As in, a time-bound relationship

that the buffalo bills are named after buffalo bill i guess??

Not the Silence of the Lambs guy, tho.

either that or their mascot should be a duck

With spicy wings!

Sister Lovers was him and abandmate dating a pair of sisters though it sounds like it should be a poetic allusion dunnit?

It is also a quote from David Crosby's "Triad".

The "months as life-stages" trope seems to cast aside January, February and March. I can do without them myself but it makes for an inconsistent metaphor.

it was only today that it dawned on me that for years, I'd been reading the thread title "Every huge artist has their "New Jersey"" as "Every huge artist has their "Nebraska"" and now that thread finally makes more sense. I have no idea why my brain confused these states.

They're the only two states that appear in Bruce Springsteen album titles.

Is that so.

https://i.imgur.com/RLCFyjB.jpeg