Things you were shockingly old when you learned

Until a couple of years ago I thought 'obtuse' meant abstruse or odd, and that 'fulsome praise' was enthusiastic praise.

i used to pronounce hyperbole as "hyper bowl" :( :( until i was in my 20s :( :( :( :(

I've heard misusing obtuse is a common one.

I got called obtuse by a very charming anonymous person on this very forum once (via livejournal), and I had to wonder wether they were trying to suggest that I was difficult, or stupid.

I'd much rather the former, obviously.

Apparently the correct pronunciation of syndrome is so that it rhymes with 'sing to me' - but you'd be a wanker if you pronounced it that way.

The way people use 'obtuse' and 'fulsome' these days indicates that the word itself is changing meaning. Sitll, it's a shock when you find out how these words are defined, and realise you've been insulting people for years unintentionally.

that you can just lift the silverware thing right out of the dishwasher and carry it over to the silverware drawer

*Slaps forehead*

That was news to me too - another useful tip from ILX, and a black eye to all who say this place is a waste of time.

I always thought 'enervated' meant excited...but it means tired. Which is not how it sounds...

it took me a while to figure out "pneumonia" a) was not pronounced "puh-new-monia" and b) was the same illness as "new-monia"

I listened to Fishbone's "Party at Ground Zero" for almost 20 years before I learned they were saying "and the world will turn to glowing pink vapor stew" in the chorus.

I just made hollandaise for the first time a few days ago does that count.

someone explain the perry farrell pun to me please

peripheral

didn't know what a blt was until age 26

after reading that thread that day, every time i've lifted the silverware thing out of the dishwasher and carried it over to the drawer for emptying i have given full credit to tracer hand.

well that does explains the handle. sheesh.

Step back for this one. Until this year - and for some 15-20 years prior to that - I believed that 'Hazmat' was the name of a company which specialised in the delivery of kosher goods to Islamic restaurants and delicatessens.

I am smugly proud now of my years of avoiding back strain as I always knew about the basket.

thanking u nick!

"I knew about the basket" should be a band name.

I was 14 when I learned to reply with , "What business is it of yours?" to comments about my clothes, my hair, the way I walked etc.

that has left me with an unfortunate impression of your wardrobe, appearance and carriage.

interesting response to compliments

When you're 14, no personal comment, no matter how kindly intended, is a compliment:

"You look nice."
"Oh, muu-uum!"

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

― Rotgutt, Wednesday, November 12, 2008 8:44 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark<br><br>no, it's not a pun. It's a translation of the phrase khulja sim sim from Ali Baba & the Forty Thieves

i wasn't 25 until I learned to not use html breaks on ILE

I'm 34 and just now learned it's not pronounced "sam hane".

Half these rock star puns passed me by until my 20s (mostly until a previous ILX thread on the subject), along with Ed Rush and Pat Smear.

I pronounced something I'd only ever read wrong last week, so it's still happening! When I was corrected I had a feeling of "oh shit, I knew that," but I wondered how many more are out there that I don't know about.

(Also didn't know Schenectady had a hard "ch", but since I've never been within 2000 miles of it, maybe it's not so bad. Even though I've always liked the name too. I don't know how to pronounce "Stuyvesant" either, while we're mispronouncing our way round NY.)

"that you can just lift the silverware thing right out of the dishwasher and carry it over to the silverware drawer"

I will do this every time from now on. You are changing lives for the better.

I was 14 when I learned to reply with , "What business is it of yours? FUCK YOU, MOTHERFUCKER!!!" to comments about my clothes, my hair, the way I walked etc.

Wait! What is an ox?

Oxen (singular ox) are large and heavyset breeds of Bos taurus cattle trained as draft animals. Often they are adult, castrated males. Usually an ox is over four years old due to the need for training and to allow it to grow to full size. [...]

An ox is nothing more than a mature bovine with an "education."

uppity cows then

So no animal is born an ox, they just have oxness thrust upon them?

I learned what fondue was a couple of months ago when I didn't know how to draw it in a game of Cranium, which resulted in a lot of disbelieving laughter heading my way.

I was about 14 or 15 when I learned how luggage gets across the ocean.

I mean I thought there was a giant series of tubes and things under the ocean that took luggage everywhere in the world from the airports. I blame all the kiddy tv shows that had scenes with confusing conveyor belts behind the scenes in airports.

There's a street in Exeter called Musgrave Row, but the road sign always had a bit of the 'R' missing so it looked like Musgrave Pow.

Only at the age of ~25, and only because the sign was replaced, did it occur to me that the street was not called Musgrave Pow.

i was probably 10 before i realized that when a song played on the radio the band hadn't actually come in to the studio, set up their stuff and played it. I had imagined a line of bands outside radio station buildings waiting to play their songs.

^^^ I had this notion, but with tv. I think I was younger when I learned better though.

Most of mine were to do with language. For instance, I heard people talking about this magical shop called WH Smith. where they seemed to go quite a lot, quite a lot that is, compared to the frequency with which I saw it, which was never.

I did however see a shop which I pronounced wsmiths. I really didn't connect the two for a very long time.

When very young I used to say 'WH Smith [properly this time] out!', whenever I meant LBW.

I didn't realise until I was well into my teens that I had been consistently misreading the word everyone said as halcyon as halycon, so in my mind there were two words for the same concept - one pronounced 'hal-see-on' and on 'halicon'. They must in some sense have occupied the same space and yet they didn't.

Also soap operas were so poperas in my head until a revelatory moment I can still remember, when I was sitting on the stairs at home. I realised it was nothing to do with the fact they were 'so popular'.

Gamaliel Ratsey - fuzzy thinker

I just learned what brussels sprouts taste like about three days ago. I am 32.

I just learned how to poach an egg the other day. But I fried one for a roommate a couple weeks ago, and he said "Wow, I think this is the first time I've ever had a fried egg. They're pretty good!"

yeah a lot of cooking i've only grasped in the past couple of years (i'm 35)

There are a lot of things I used to think suddenly fell into place when you became and adult, and it's a bit of a relief and a bit of a disappointment to realize that most of them are actually cumulative, like cooking skills.

I've been cooking for a long long time, but only learned how to properly hold a knife (thumb and forefinger on the blade near the handle, rest of palm and fingers on handle) a few years ago.

my sister likes to make fun of me for drawing a picture of a duck with four legs in my teens

that you have to park a car on the street so it faces the same way as if it were in traffic. 1st time I moved parents' car onto street after getting my license, family was all "lol u bozo u parked backwards" and I was likke "wha???"

I do this sometimes. I know you can get a ticket for it but if it's more convenient, then I still will.

That must be a local thing - it's commonplace practice here.

(right now, my own car and both of the ones parked either side of it are parked on the "wrong" side of the road)

Wasn't til I was about 18/19 that I learned one of my uncles wasn't my grandma's biological son.

never heard that about olives!

also, i had pronounced the word vapid with a long a sound until i was like 24 when i was corrected (and gently mocked). but then i found out via merriam webster that the long a sound is perfectly acceptable a couple of years ago (is that a british thing?). sorry that's all i can think of for now.