general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

We're all fairly intelligent here in The Lounge, I think...but we all have something we're probably embarrassed to admit we don't know.

Maybe you're bad at geography and think that London is a country, like a friend of mine does.

Maybe you're an American and can't name the three Executive Branches of the U.S. government (my brother can't)

Here's mine:

Until recently, I had no idea that prunes are dried plums. I just assumed they were completely different fruits! [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

And before some smart-ass says anything, yes I know that raisins are dried grapes!

So what's yours?

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I didn't know how to do a screen print. I had to ask diebitter to explain it to me [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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I grew up in Washington state and couldn't name the great lakes. Turned out to be a bit embarrassing in Ohio...

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When I buy a new computer, I have to call tech support to ask how to turn it on.

My friend has an Apple that I have mashed my brain trying to turn on. He is glad to know that his information is secure when I am around.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

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Until recently, I had no idea that prunes are dried plums. I just assumed they were completely different fruits!

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Same here.

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I once thought that for "all intents and purposes" was for "all intensive purposes"

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I once thought that for "all intents and purposes" was for "all intensive purposes"

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I think a lot of ppl think this.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

That one's super common. Funny thing is, most of those slip-ups don't really make sense, so it's strange that they get used at all.

When I first came to California, I noted that the palm trees here are completely different from the coconut palms I'm used to seeing in the tropics. A friend said they were date palms, and I said, "You mean they grow something that looks like dates?" And he replied, "No, they grow DATES." I never pictured anything but something like a nut coming from palms.

I also pronounced the L in salmon for about the first 20 years of my life. At the time, nobody in the pacific ever ate it, so it just never came up.

There are a lot of little things with browser navigation and computer use I don't know. I came from back in the DOS days and used to be a bit of a wiz back then, but after those days, I've kind of dumbed down my usage to just the basics for the most part.

I also find setting up new programs cumbersome sometimes, like when they ask you how to set up POP e-mail or whatever. That came up with Pokertracker and getting it to read my histories off Pokertracker. It was not smooth sailing.

Also, I know next to nothing about whatever music is coming out. I don't really follow music much anymore, at least not forward. Now I'm trying to go backward, and learn about the older stuff. Rap and hip-hop and pop etc. have no appeal to me.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

Funny, but true story:

In class we watched a short video about the lack of international curriculum in American high schools. One of the examples was how a kid couldn't find India on the map.

The teacher asked us to discuss the video amongst ourselves in our small groups.

One of the girls next to us (semi-hot) admits that she doesn't know where Asia is on a map.

WTF?

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

For those who are ashamed of their lack of geography knowledge:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/05/02/geog.test/

After more than three years of combat and nearly 2,400 U.S. military deaths in Iraq, nearly two-thirds of Americans aged 18 to 24 still cannot find Iraq on a map,

less than six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, 33 percent could not point out Louisiana on a U.S. map.

half or fewer of young men and women 18-24 can identify the states of New York or Ohio on a map [50 percent and 43 percent, respectively],

When the poll was conducted in 2002, "Americans scored second to last on overall geographic knowledge, trailing Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and Sweden," the report said.

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I've read that like half of high school kids can't find Mexico on a map, but I'm skeptical.

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Even after I had graduated high school I didnt know what state Washington D.C was in.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

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I didn't know how to do a screen print. I had to ask diebitter to explain it to me [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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And Katy then had to try and walk me through that whole process that diebitter posted in the Jackson Pollock thread.
Sadly it was not working, so Utah came along online (he's in Siberia) and walked me through. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

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the three Executive Branches of the U.S. government

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what

I don't know the difference between a burrito and a soft taco (i.e. with a flour tortilla).

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

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I don't know the difference between a burrito and a soft taco (i.e. with a flour tortilla).

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Haha, this made me laugh. To this day I'm still not sure what a tostada is. Is it a flat hard shell with stuff piled on it?

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

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I don't know the difference between a burrito and a soft taco (i.e. with a flour tortilla).

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Haha, this made me laugh. To this day I'm still not sure what a tostada is. Is it a flat hard shell with stuff piled on it?

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I think so...anyone know what a pimento is?? I love green olives stuffed with them, but for the life of me I have no idea what they are.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

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I don't know the difference between a burrito and a soft taco (i.e. with a flour tortilla).

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Haha, this made me laugh. To this day I'm still not sure what a tostada is. Is it a flat hard shell with stuff piled on it?

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I think so...anyone know what a pimento is?? I love green olives stuffed with them, but for the life of me I have no idea what they are.

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Wasn't the pimento question asked in another thread? Katy do you remember?
I looked up tostada and Katty you are correct, but in Cuba and Spain it can refer to bread that is toasted.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

Maybe it's because I just woke up, but I can't think of a single example of how this applies to me.

However, I'm quite confident that I'll be reminded of one before the end of the day.

(I'd have to guess if asked to find Iraq on a map, but I don't consider that to be "common knowledge".)

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

i can't do anything involving fractions.. i passed an ap calc exam in high school but if u ask me to divide 2 fractions my brain will explode.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

We had a class last year in philosophy called Normativity, the study of norms. A norm is something that you should do. Some may have heard the distinction between a subject (for example ethics) being normative or descriptive, concerned with what we ought to do and what we actually do. We'd had this class for ten weeks and in the last lecture the professor asks the class what a norm is. A guy I know to be quite intelligent and one of the better students insta-calls the question with "something that usually happens", dead seriously.
Professor not best pleased.

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I can't resize a picture. This makes avatar creation difficult, I am otherwise reasonably computer literate.

I struggle with parts of speech. I was recently asked to name some prepositions. That didn't go well. Funny thing is I read more than anyone I know.

I don't know how to do some basic math problems. This is a problem in poker because I don't know how to figure out things like:

There are four balls in a basket, one red and three black. You pull a ball and then replace it. Repeat three times, what are your chances of never picking the red ball?

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i can't do anything involving fractions.. i passed an ap calc exam in high school but if u ask me to divide 2 fractions my brain will explode.

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I'm like this with geometry. I can do fine with algebra, but geometry basically blows my mind.

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I don't know the difference between a burrito and a soft taco (i.e. with a flour tortilla).

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Haha, this made me laugh. To this day I'm still not sure what a tostada is. Is it a flat hard shell with stuff piled on it?

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Go to 5:25

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

My international geography is pretty good but my UK is really bad. Until not too long ago I thought that Birmingham was north of Manchester, I still wouldnt be able to show you where most places are on a map

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

Up until my 30s I thought Bough (in a tree) was pronounced like cough instead of cow. I was talking with some clever intellectual guy about shamanism and early religion, and started going on about "The Golden Bough" (a sort of classic of its time on ancient magic etc) and calling it 'The Golden Boff'. He was kind enough to put me straight discreetly.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

lol, I encountered that last week in a class where we were reading Ezra Pound. "Petals on a wet, black bough" got pronounced three different ways, I think. Nobody noticed that it kinda rhymes with the previous line's "crowd" or that it's the word from "Deck the Halls."

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

I've never used this word aloud or heard it used even once outside that song, and I guess it just left my head. Though I have read excerpts of the book. Until right now, although only pronouncing it mentally, I have always pictured pronouncing it like you would pronounce something that shoots arrows.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

There's also...

"Rock a bye baby on the treetop,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all. "


There's no way I shouldn't have realised how to say bough properly.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

When i was like 10, i think, i was somehow asked by my friends to answer what color a girls period had. I had no idea what it was even so my first guess since it sounded icky was green.
Thankfully a friend of mine not many weeks later when asked where children came from answered the ass because he had seen a naughty picture where a lady had shoved the bigger end of a champagne bottle in her ass. This gross error naturally switched the focus from my mistake to his which was a relief.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

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i can't do anything involving fractions.. i passed an ap calc exam in high school but if u ask me to divide 2 fractions my brain will explode.

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I'm like this with geometry. I can do fine with algebra, but geometry basically blows my mind.

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Fortunately you probably aren't required to prove two lines are parallel or bisect an arc in your day to day...

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

I don't know how to floss. Seriously. I see them do it to me when I'm at the dentist but whenever I'm looking at myself in the mirror for some reason my brain will not let me get my hands into a position where it is possible to floss anything other than like the easiest to access teeth. It is very frustrating.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

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When i was like 10, i think, i was somehow asked by my friends to answer what color a girls period had. I had no idea what it was even so my first guess since it sounded icky was green.
Thankfully a friend of mine not many weeks later when asked where children came from answered the ass because he had seen a naughty picture where a lady had shoved the bigger end of a champagne bottle in her ass. This gross error naturally switched the focus from my mistake to his which was a relief.

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that's okay, up until I was about 15 or so (no internet and only Playboy to look at) I had no idea what "down below" was like on a woman. I just assumed she had three holes:

one to pee out of
one to have sex with
and one to have a baby

(I didn't count her pooper because I had one and I just assumed I'd be able to figure that one out myself)

I was petrified that when I finally got a girl to have sex with me I would have no idea which hole I was supposed to put it in.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

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I don't know how to floss. Seriously. I see them do it to me when I'm at the dentist but whenever I'm looking at myself in the mirror for some reason my brain will not let me get my hands into a position where it is possible to floss anything other than like the easiest to access teeth. It is very frustrating.

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Don't know about the flossing, but I am also woefully uncoordinated in front of a mirror. Just can't make my brain believe which hand is which or something. (Once I shaved my head, alone. It turned out fine but the process would have been hilarious had someone seen me.)

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

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There's also...

"Rock a bye baby on the treetop,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all. "


There's no way I shouldn't have realised how to say bough properly.

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Now that you mention it, I have ALWAYS heard it pronounced in that context as the kind of bow you shoot arrows with, not the kind you make from the waist.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

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When i was like 10, i think, i was somehow asked by my friends to answer what color a girls period had. I had no idea what it was even so my first guess since it sounded icky was green.
Thankfully a friend of mine not many weeks later when asked where children came from answered the ass because he had seen a naughty picture where a lady had shoved the bigger end of a champagne bottle in her ass. This gross error naturally switched the focus from my mistake to his which was a relief.

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I remember in grade school all the kids gave me a big argument when I told them that babies didn't come out of a girl's ass. They absolutely could not believe it, not a one of them.

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REALLY? You guys sing it 'when the bough breaks'

not like

'when the cow breaks'

but like

'when the toe breaks'?


That's amazing. I am amazed.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

I've never heard it that way, db, and I'm in Indiana, where nothing is pronounced correctly.

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Yeah, that's how I've heard it.

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

To this day I don't understand electricity. The simple part like what causes shock. Everytime I have to jump a car off, I'm holding the jumper cables like a dirty diaper and tilting my head way back because I just know the battery might explode-even though it never has. I don't understand how I can touch the two together and get sparks yet they're not shocking me while holding them.

I was at my grandmother's when I was 16ish and opened the refrigerator while at the same time opening the oven door to check a pizza and got lit up and my muscles contracted and I couldn't let go of either.

Someone tells me "it's a faulty ground" and I hear "jibba jibba jibba..."

Re: general knowledge everyone knows (but you!)
 

Does everyone really know much about electricity though? I don't think a very large percentage couldn't tell you much about it, including how a battery or a motor work or a hydroelectric dam works.