People are sharing the obvious things they didn’t realize until later in life and it’s a wonder some of them made it this long.
This sounds ridiculous, but I recently found out about the term “knee jerk reaction”
My whole life I had been saying it how I heard it, and just figured it was spelled something like “neidric reaction” like it was some psychology term
Super embarrassing but in college I would order Roman Cokes because I heard everyone else ordering the same…turns out I misheard everyone and found out it was just rum and coke
I always thought “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too” was a weird saying because why wouldn’t I be able to eat my freaking slice of cake? It’s my cake.
Nobody was telling me that I can’t have my cake. Turns out they mean you can’t eat the cake while also still retaining it. Once it is eaten, it is gone. An idiom I did not understand until this year. I am 27.
The first time I visited the USA I was on my own and in NY and going to all the museums. I kept seeing signs that said “No strollers” and though, because we call strollers prams in the UK, that you guys are super strict about the proper amount of attention required to visit a museum. I actually pretended to show more interest than I had in order to be thougth of as some some deadbeat out for a casual stroll.
It wasn’t until about day three that I saw a “No strollers” sign that included a graphic for idiots.
I kept seeing the same Chinese characters on restaurant’s signs and I always wanted to know what it meant. A week ago I found out: they mean restaurant.
Cruella de Vil was a cruel devil.
Cilantro and Coriander are the same plant.
I was 28 before I realized the meaning to the why is 6 afraid of 7 joke. I always just thought it was dumb, 7,8,9, like you’re just counting…….the electric bill wasn’t paid until later in my life.
I only just today realized that the “walk the plank” plank on a boat is not a special addition pirates added to their ships as a means of public execution that looked like a little wooden diving board.
It is, in fact, the very same plank as the gangplank you’d normally use to get on and off of the ship. It is not the presence of the plank that is threatening, but the absence of dock.
That big ship’s wheel I got to turn as a kid was not actually controlling the cruise ship
I realized that to be in one’s birthday suit it means to be without clothes. I thought for the longest time it was a specific set of clothes you would wear on your birthday each year. I found out when I asked, “what happens when you don’t fit in your birthday suit anymore?” Lol
For the longest time, I always thought Prima Donna was Pre-Madonna
That they put measurement stickers next to gas station doors so if a robber is running out of the store you can get a better estimate of their height. I always thought they were just there for something fun to do on road trip stops….
I recently realized I was allergic to carrots. I just thought they made everyone’s mouth numb, you know, just like almonds…. I also learned recently that I have an almond allergy.
The reason the cord hook on the vacuum spins is so you can take the whole cord off at once instead of unraveling it one loop at a time, like I have been my whole life.
My boyfriend did not know that his electric toothbrush has a timer on it that goes off at 1 minute and 2 minutes. He actually returned it and got a new one thinking it was broken, since the “timer” is just a brief sort of pause/reduction in the vibration. He would be like “wtf I literally just charged this fucking thing” thinking that the battery was already dying.
One day, and I can’t remember exactly what the conversation was, I brought up how I liked that my toothbrush let me know when I had brushed long enough, and it was like a lightbulb went off in his head and suddenly he put it together that that was what his toothbrush was doing all along.
i realized at the age of 26 that narwhals are real because they were on an octonauts episode
i walked into the room and was like, “i thought they only do real animals on this show” then the kids’ dad said, “you’re joking… right?”
That parents have children write letters to Santa so they can figure out what to buy them for Christmas. I can’t believe how I never put that together after 32 years on this earth I just thought it was fun little tradition..
Principal Belding from Saved by the Bell is named “bell ding.”
That calling some one simple is just a nice way of calling some one stupid. Wife informed me of this, after 28 years of my grandma calling me simple.
My whole life I thought “Pay-per-view” was actually “paper view” because I had only ever heard people say it, and only recently saw it written out.
For a long time I thought “to bust a nut” meant that you were going to kick a guy in the balls or beat him up. So anytime I was getting worked up or angry talking about some guy I would say ” I’m going to bust his fucking nut” not knowing the real meaning. Nobody ever said anything but it was always followed by my friends laughing so I assumed it was because I was being dramatic.
Years go by and my coworker is telling me about some rude person he met and I said “you should definitely bust that guy’s nut”, to which he paused and said “do you even know what that means?” Suffice it to say I was extremely embarrassed and horrified when he explained it to me.
I learned that allspice is actually one spice and not a blend of spices like cinnamon and nutmeg.
Saw a place labled as “Public house” when I moved nearby recently.
It was at that moment I realized “OH thats why they call them PUBS. Its short for public house”