Anonymous
Post 12/13/2019 21:25     Subject: What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?
Anonymous wrote:Some of these remind me of a story from a sommelier I used to work with.

A customer looked at the very expensive wine list, and then ordered the "cor-CAHJ". Confused at first, the sommelier then smiled and said they were all out, and steered them towards the cheapest wine they had. The customer had likely been looking for the cheapest item, and saw that the CORKAGE fee was $15, and tried to order it.


Omg!! Haha.

That reminds me of a story my sister told me about her friend who was on a date with a guy at the movies and instead of saying Seabiscuit the normal way, for some reason she thought it was French and aloud to the guy she called it: Say - ah - bis - quee
Anonymous
Post 12/13/2019 21:19     Subject: What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The difference between e.g. and i.e. Was blissfully using them interchangeably until my mid 40s.


I correct my coworker's in formal documentation on this ALL. THE. TIME. Thank you, high school Latin class.


Do you mean coworkers?


Ouch

Not if it was only one coworker.
Anonymous
Post 12/13/2019 21:17     Subject: Re:What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?
Anonymous wrote:The saying that "It's always in the last place you look" is literal. It's the last place because you found it! Don't know why that never clicked for me.

I just realized this when you explained it.
Anonymous
Post 12/13/2019 21:16     Subject: Re:What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?
Anonymous wrote:i.e. = id est (roughly, "that is")
e.g. = exempli gratia (for example)

True, but I don’t think this is commonly known.
Anonymous
Post 12/13/2019 21:14     Subject: What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:How to pronounce gnocchi.

I said, G-noch-E at the holiday work lunch one year. I was 35.



Common error amongst non Italians.


I only figured this out a few years ago. A cat on Curious George is named Gnocchi.
Anonymous
Post 12/13/2019 21:13     Subject: What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:That Jews are not considered white. I was born in the hood and actually never knew anyone Jewish or at least no one that said “I’m Jewish” until I was about 38 years old. I wasn’t educated on the anything about Jewish culture or even the Holocaust. I never understood why Jews would say they were discriminated against, because to me they looked white. I was really ignorant to all things Jewish until my then 7 year old DD starting learning about it the Holocaust in school. I felt pretty stupid. But it was never anything I was taught about.


Jewish people are white, or can be. Who knows, maybe I am still ignorant of this but I don't think so.

Jewish is not a race. There are white Jews and black Jews.
Anonymous
Post 12/13/2019 21:11     Subject: What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?
Anonymous wrote:For a word game competition in college i pronounced Sobriquet as so- bri - que - T.

Everyone laughed at me . Worse when it was their turn to speak, they delibertely purposely mispronounced all the words they were using i.e. K - nife, buffe-T, etc. The audience, the comp and all the participants were in stiches!

I still die a thousand deaths when i think of this.

On a related note (there is a theme here), I pronounced hyperbole as hyper-bowl. My BF at the time asked if it was a larger version of the superbowl. Cringe!

You are not the one who should be embarrassed by this.
Anonymous
Post 12/13/2019 21:10     Subject: What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?
Anonymous wrote:Some of these remind me of a story from a sommelier I used to work with.

A customer looked at the very expensive wine list, and then ordered the "cor-CAHJ". Confused at first, the sommelier then smiled and said they were all out, and steered them towards the cheapest wine they had. The customer had likely been looking for the cheapest item, and saw that the CORKAGE fee was $15, and tried to order it.

Now that’s a class act.
Anonymous
Post 12/13/2019 20:58     Subject: What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:That Jews are not considered white. I was born in the hood and actually never knew anyone Jewish or at least no one that said “I’m Jewish” until I was about 38 years old. I wasn’t educated on the anything about Jewish culture or even the Holocaust. I never understood why Jews would say they were discriminated against, because to me they looked white. I was really ignorant to all things Jewish until my then 7 year old DD starting learning about it the Holocaust in school. I felt pretty stupid. But it was never anything I was taught about.


Jewish people are white, or can be. Who knows, maybe I am still ignorant of this but I don't think so.


I think this is one of the ways in which race is a social construct in the US. A Black/Hispanic person from “the hood,” as OP puts it, probably sees Jews as white. The same as she’d see white people of other religions and/or ethnic backgrounds. On the other hand, a white Christian person from a Midwestern small town might not see Jews as white.
Anonymous
Post 12/13/2019 20:39     Subject: What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?
Anonymous wrote:That Jews are not considered white. I was born in the hood and actually never knew anyone Jewish or at least no one that said “I’m Jewish” until I was about 38 years old. I wasn’t educated on the anything about Jewish culture or even the Holocaust. I never understood why Jews would say they were discriminated against, because to me they looked white. I was really ignorant to all things Jewish until my then 7 year old DD starting learning about it the Holocaust in school. I felt pretty stupid. But it was never anything I was taught about.


Jewish people are white, or can be. Who knows, maybe I am still ignorant of this but I don't think so.
Anonymous
Post 12/13/2019 20:30     Subject: Re:What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:That realtor is not pronounced "real-uh-tor"


again, this is regional.

Jewelry and Realtor are pronounced differently depending on where you were raised.

Huh. I always just assumed that these were simply commonly mispronounced words, rather than words with multiple pronunciations that are considered correct. Like mixing up the vowels in “nuclear” by pronouncing it “nook-you-lar.”


You are correct.
Anonymous
Post 12/13/2019 20:27     Subject: What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?
How to spell segue.
Anonymous
Post 12/13/2019 20:26     Subject: What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?
I used to love the movie Dirty Dancing when I was a kid. I had NO IDEA that Penny’s character was getting some back room abortion. The whole time they kept saying, “Penny is in trouble.” I had no idea what that meant.

It was only when I was watching the movie in grad school when it finally clicked and I was like, “holy hell!”
Anonymous
Post 12/13/2019 20:25     Subject: What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The difference between e.g. and i.e. Was blissfully using them interchangeably until my mid 40s.


I correct my coworker's in formal documentation on this ALL. THE. TIME. Thank you, high school Latin class.


Do you mean coworkers?


Ouch
Anonymous
Post 12/13/2019 20:22     Subject: What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The difference between e.g. and i.e. Was blissfully using them interchangeably until my mid 40s.


I correct my coworker's in formal documentation on this ALL. THE. TIME. Thank you, high school Latin class.


Do you mean coworkers?