What insanely obvious thing did you not realize for much of your life?

theenigma77 · 4 months

My friend thought Reindeer were just a christmas related mythical animal until he was 18.

themword · 4 months

That 'fortnight' means fourteen nights. When I pointed this out to my brother at the age of 20, he was like, "Yeah, obviously", but I could tell he hadn't realised before. Dick

bag_of_words · 4 months

Chips ahoy is a play on words of the nautical term ships ahoy.

stimbus · 4 months

Oh, mine is bad.

Until the age of 19 I didn't realize that the handicap symbol was a guy in a wheelchair. I thought it was a character from some Asian language that meant handicapped.

It was a mindfuck the first time I realized what it actually was.

Edit:

I swear this is the only other one I have.

My family was terribly, terribly poor until my teenage years. When I was 14, we went down to a sit-down restaurant for the first time. I ordered a burger, as was my way. Now, I had no idea what grades of cooking existed as it just wasn't something that had come up.

Me: I'd like a cheeseburger please Miss.

Waitress: Medium?

Me: No, large please.

Needless to say, that was embarassing.

stubbledchin · 4 months

Prunes are to Plums as Raisins are to Grapes.

DHumefan · 4 months

I actually have to talk to women if I want to ever meet any.

bipolar-bear · 4 months

In my mother tongue we have 2 different words for green tomatoes and red tomatoes, I grew up thinking they are 2 different vegetables, never suspected the green tomato becomes a red tomato

MOLESTOTHESUPERAPIST · 4 months

That SPAM is short for "spiced ham"

Brucolac · 4 months

the disparaging term 'cracker' is derived from 'whip-cracker' now I understand why I wouldn't want to be called that

larrylightfingers · 4 months

I'm 40 and only discovered a couple of years ago that these are the same flower

radiomonkey20 · 4 months

I thought gunpoint and knifepoint were real places. I promised myself I'd never go near them since it seemed like everyone who went there got robbed. I was about 14 or 15 when it clicked.

chrs_1979 · 4 months

hors d'oevres = "ordervs" not "whore's dervrez"

talkingwithfireworks · 4 months

That pancakes were cakes you made in a pan.

XGDragon · 4 months

I always thought John Doe was a very popular person, until I realised it's a placeholder name.

SpeltGreyNotGray · 4 months

That Eeyore was named for the sound a donkey makes. Someone pointed this out to me a while back; blew my mind.

Also, I only found out a couple years ago that "troll" refers to someone dangling bait on a hook in the ocean, waiting for a fish to come along and bite. I'd always thought it was because anyone who'd waste people's time with bullshit was a monster, hence, "troll." (Because trolls, as opposed to vampires or weres or what have you, are stupid, ugly bastards rather than sexy or immortal.)

kat_fud · 4 months

It finally dawned on me after about 32 years that it meant that they were going to hide if they saw me first.

It may mean that if they see you first, they will sneak up on you and kill you from behind.

Somthinginconspicou · 4 months

Sitcom= Situational Comedy, felt like a damn fool when I found out.

case_sensitive · 4 months

The "L" of the Staples logo is a bent staple.

tornadosniper · 4 months

Breakfast = Breaking the fast.

Talulabelle · 4 months

I have no explanation for why I thought this was the old postal service logo. It wasn't until they switched to the new one that I realized what it was supposed to be. My only defense is that I have never really had occasion to discuss postal service logos with anyone before.

nfconnon · 4 months

Every kiss begins with Kay. It finally hit me one evening and I facepalmed.

accioalexandra · 4 months

I know this one has been pointed out often, but the D in the Disney logo was not actually a G.

shuazien · 4 months

Supersalad = Soup or Salad?

jessicaexperience · 4 months

Camcorder.

A CAMera reCORDER.

NotWiddershins · 4 months

I was in twelfth grade when I realize that the man in "I Saw mommy Kissing Santa Claus" was actually the narrator's father in a Santa costume. Also, the double meaning in the title of "The Santa Clause." To be fair, I was five when it came out.
It seems that Christmas-based subtlety escapes me.

qwerty081 · 4 months

The Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star are the same song. Took me WAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY too long to figure that out.

celtic1888 · 4 months

That it's usually much easier to do the work than trying to figure out a way of getting out of it.

farceur318 · 4 months

I had two "holy shit, I'm an idiot" realizations, my senior year of college, one possibly understandable and the other I may never let myself live down. The first was learning that Woodchuck and Groundhog are two different names for the same goddamn animal. I always picture Woodchucks as being similar to groundhogs but slightly smaller. Nope. Same thing.

The second thing I learned that year (and this is a doozy. One of those things that makes me feel like a stereotypical stupid American) was that the island of Great Britain contained England, Scotland and Wales. Somehow, I had survived for 22 years thinking that those three countries each had their own island and that Great Britain was just a nickname for England. When I saw a map of Great Britain, my brain shat itself.

_Captain_ · 4 months

That "Ped Xing" meant "pedestrian crossing"... I knew what the sign was for but never really made the connection...

puerilemeanderings · 4 months

Paper comes from trees on tree farms. It didn't occur to me until I met someone in college who had grown up on one that trees were something that could be farmed - I honestly believed that they were cutting down trees in forests and jungles to make paper (and firewood, furniture, etc.) and that this was the cause of deforestation.

Ryuksapple · 4 months

I really need to leave this thread. It is simultaneously blowing my mind and making me feel stupid as hell.

Tuc3 · 4 months

I used to think ponies were baby horses. Mind blown.

kenef · 4 months

English as second language guy here - I realized wayy to late that ground beef actually means beef that has been through a grinder and not... You know beef they picked up from the ground. I thought it was just some weird expression term.

monty20python · 4 months

I thought Gene Wilder was Mel Brooks up until a few years ago, I am insane.

cunningklobe · 4 months

That mermaids were fictional.

It wasn't anything like "Well, everyone says they're not real but i think they are", it was more like nobody told me any different and i never really thought about it.

coratrash · 4 months

I thought that "Wind Chill" was actually pronounced ""Windshield". Made lots of awkward conversations in the mornings in good ol Minnesota.

marley88 · 4 months

Ferrero Rocher have Nutella in them.

doc_daneeka · 4 months

Um. Wow.

I feel really, really stupid now, as it took me 38 years to figure that out too.

Sigh.

lightbreaksthrough · 4 months

I thought Postman and Water World were one long movie.

Lost_it · 4 months

I and a friend of mine, on the train..

He: "I wonder how the train driver manages to drive the train exactly over the rails without making a mistake"

He was 21!

crazybones · 4 months

That dogs and horses were different species. I just thought horses were big dogs.

jaylaw_kart · 4 months

This will most likely be buried, but hey. I had real trouble getting to sleep when I was a child, to the extent i'd have to lie there for hours before finally drifting off. Was a little irritating.

I came downstairs one morning excited because i'd finally found a way of getting to sleep quickly. At the breakfast table I told my mother about it: ''I just lie there with my eyes already closed and after about 10 minutes, i'm asleep!''.

Up to that point I'd been lying there with my eyes OPEN, waiting patiently for sleep to happen. I was ten years old.

johnsmcjohn · 4 months

The "that's what she said" pun. Never understood it until someone explained it to me in another thread on r/askreddit.

Nux_loves_pucks · 4 months

That raisins come from grapes

Loggus · 4 months

When everyone is in the basement during "That 70's Show" they are not just talking like I always thought.

They are smoking weed

Jen33 · 4 months

That a "couple" of things means two, and does not mean the same thing as a "few".

stimbus · 4 months

It wasn't until I was in the latter half of my 20's that I realized there were so many different subspecies of trees. Until I noticed, in my mind there were like 3 or 4 different kinds of tree. I knew about different kinds of wood because I had a Grandfather that worked with wood but I never connected that all this different kind of wood came from different kinds of trees. I just never was interested.

Since I've noticed I've memorized almost every single different kind of tree in my area and in my home town on the other side of the country. I really have no interest in trees but I've become obsessed with being able to identify them. I even carry a field guide with me now. Sometimes when I'm having conversation with someone I will stop the conversation if I spot a tree that isn't native to this area or if it's a tree I've never seen before. I will have to look it up or inspect it. When I watch TV or a movie I will try to identify the trees in the background and figure out where they filmed it.

Tim-Fu · 4 months

Great, I'm 32 and also never really knew what that saying meant till OP explained it :(

Bezzie · 4 months

"To make ends meet"

I thought it was "to make ends meat" as if ends meat was a form of meat that poor people had and it was made from cheap materials you would buy and make yourself.

capcalhoon · 4 months

Being physically attractive is a choice. Unless you are on one end of the extreme (albino hunchback dwarf / ClooneyPitt) then better hygiene, getting in shape, and dressing up will raise your attractiveness tenfold.

smithnigel · 4 months

This is a bit weaker but I never realized that will.I.am is William.

I know.

thegchild · 4 months

Used to confuse Bob Dylan & Keith Richards. In fact for a long time just genuinely had no clue which was which.

I blame "Like a Rolling Stone."

chaharlot · 4 months

articUNO, zapDOS, molTRES.

You have no idea how much it blew my mind when I found that out last year. I was on Sporcle, naming all 151 pokemon, and I was like "Ha, that's funny, zapdos ends in dos and mortres ends in tres. It would be so cool if artic---WHAT?"

Yeah. That's exactly how it happened.

basilobs · 4 months

I always thought when people TP'd houses they were teepeeing them. Like the Native American houses. I never realized it was TP, which I'm sure you know is short for toilet paper. And it made sense to me. As the toilet paper draped over the tree it could be in the relative shape of a teepee. I was 18 when I realized it was TP.

Also. Trojan BareSkin condoms. For the first several weeks, I only heard the commercials and never saw them. Totally thought they were making condoms from bear skin.

DownHillKill · 4 months

I always thought pretzels were a special type of wood.god I'm an idiot

Neurotikitty · 4 months

How to play minesweeper. I was 20 before I figured out that you weren't supposed to just randomly click around. I had no idea what the numbers were for.

vestegnenpersiempre · 4 months

That when it itches (like if you have an itch on your leg or something), it helps to scratch back. I remember complaining to someone when I was around ten, that I had an itch, and he said "well, scratch it". I was really surprised that it worked.

SparkzOut · 4 months

Call me just completely ignorant on this but I had never truly gave it any real thought as to why the British called the Americans "Yanks" until one day I realized Yank was short for Yankee... Not one of my proudest moments.

nazaire · 4 months

In Harry Potter. . . Diagon Ally = Diagonally

nastybacon · 4 months

Ive always wandered why in english we say "On the Bus" "In The Car" "On the train." We put something on a table, but we Don't sit on top of a bus. We sit in a bus.. but it sounds wrong.

Someone posed the same question on Facebook today, and the perfect answer came back that totally answers it!

"Its because you step on to a bus or a train and you get in to a car"

Of course!! its all to do with height! In a car you are generally lower down than anyone standing next to it. But not on a train,bus,plane etc.

But on a moped/motorbike/bicycle.. you arent actually in anything so the on rule applies.

Oh its so simple now. I will no longer give any non native english speakers any leeway if they get it wrong!!

Yosh_ · 4 months

You can wipe sitting down

token_internet_girl · 4 months

No one told me movies weren't real until I was about 9 or 10 years old. So you can imagine how many sleepless nights I had as a kid thinking the Poltergeist or Alien was coming for me. I even thought watching "The Real Ghostbusters" was the only was I was going to be able to defend myself if that ever happened D:

thematrixhasmeredux · 4 months

That LA was next to the ocean. I went on a trip with my cousin to LA and all of a sudden i smell the ocean. Im retarded.

EnderInExile · 4 months

That the characters in Dragon Ball Z from the Babidi/Majin Buu Saga put together = Bibidi Babidi Buu.

Pabloxanibar · 4 months

I just recently realized that Muscovites were people from Moscow.

EOC33 · 4 months

That "as cool as the other side of the pillow" was referring to its soothing temperature. I thought it just meant cool...I'm an idiot.

Hraesvelg7 · 4 months

After loving the movie The History of the World Part 1 for twenty years I realized the promo for Part 2 was a joke and it was not just extremely delayed.

econguy · 4 months

She was flirting with me.

dessertbird · 4 months

That CCCP is actually SSSR in cyrillic and I'd been pronouncing it stupidly for most of my life.

DarrenEdwards · 4 months

I thought 'soap opera was pronounced show poppers. My mom humiliated me when I said it and made me repeat it in front of my grandmother.

My best friend didn't understand the phrase 'smooth move, Exlax' as a reference to a bowel movement. He would say, "Good job, Exlax!"

Lazook · 4 months

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