Next week I’m going to New England to talk about my upcoming new book at a conference just for indie booksellers (yay!) and I was talking to Elizabeth (the lovely person who runs Nowhere Bookshop) about it and she asked “Where in New England, because it’s pretty big?” and I thought she was crazy because isn’t New England a small state? Like, it’s so small I can’t even remember what the capital of New England is and then Victor and Elizabeth just stared at me in horror, because apparently New England isn’t a state at all. I assumed that they were fucking with me but they explained that New England was a whole group of states and asked if I also thought “the midwest” was a state, and I said, “Obviously not, because there is a ‘the’ in the title. That’s how you know it’s a group. ‘The southwest.’ ‘The Atlantic Seaboard.’ Like, if New England isn’t a state then why do we have The New England Patriots? We don’t have “The Mormon Corridor Stallions,” do we? This is too confusing. Petition to rename New England “‘The Upper Righties’.”
And then they looked at me like I was even stupider and I wondered if New England wasn’t even in the upper right of the map. and reminded them that they didn’t teach me Geography in high school because I was too busy taking classes on judging-cotton, cattle insemination, boll-weevil eradication and square dancing. (Thanks, Texas! Super helpful!)
Elizabeth was like, “You never learned the songs about the states?” and then proceeded to send me something called “The Nifty Fifty,” which was decidedly not a bop and didn’t even rhyme. Then she sent me “Wakko’s 50 State Capitols” and I was like, “Ringo Star as a mouse teaching me geography sung to the melody of every square dancing class I ever took was not on my bingo card for today, but I guess here we are.”
So my question to you is, what is something you learned as an adult that made you feel incredibly stupid, because I can’t be alone here.
Also, whoever decided that we should capitalize “Capitol” when it refers to the building but not “capital” when it refers to the capital city that the Capitol is in is on my forever shitlist. Also, spellcheck is telling me “shitlist” isn’t even a word. I fucking give up.
As a New Englander (living in Massachusetts) we will absolutely forgive you for not knowing the NE states. It’s okay, don’t fret! I hope you enjoy your time here, safe travels!
Fellow Texan here. I was a young adult before I realized that the fast food chain is What A Burger (Whataburger) and not Water Burger. Thanks how it sounds with a Texas Panhandle accent and I clearly never bothered to read the sign.
I’ve learned SO many things as an adult,that apparently everyone else knew. And I have a Master’s Degree! (in Acting.)
And shitlist is a word. Maybe 2. Safe travels!
Good going on edumacation, Texas! I grew up in California and learned “Fifty Nifty” (with of course the shouted part, “California! Is! The! BEST!”) in 3rd grade – and at the age of 62 I can still sing it….even when, or maybe especially when, my husband begs me not to.
I never did learn the capitals song, though.
As for stupid things everyone knows that I should have learned earlier, well, that list is mighty long….
I had never seen that video or show before. I feel kind of educated and dumbed down at the same time.
For a while, when I was younger, I did think that New England was a State. But I got judged and laughed at by friends.
Also, shitlist is too a word! Spellcheck can go fluff itself!
I never learned a song about the states or capital cities, but I did play a 16-bit graphic computer game that taught me capitals in the 80s…. I can’t remember s***, though. XD
Don’t feel bad. We all have this kind of horrifying epiphany. I’m just glad my perimenopausal memory sucks enough that I also can’t remember my most recent embarrassment. LOL.
I was in my 30’s before I figured out “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”.
Ahahaha don’t feel bad. I was in my 30s when I found out Alaska wasn’t an Island like Hawaii.
Ummmmm… you saying “then why do we have the New England Patriots?” made me realize that I never even questioned that it isn’t, in fact, a state!
I’m still getting over the fact that narwhals are real creatures.
I’m sure it’s happened to me but I can’t remember what, however my wife didn’t realize the tv show “Hawaii 5-oh” was called that because its the 50th state.
Let’s be real. If any city is the capital of New England, it would be Boston. For people that don’t know the area, it’s the most known place. I say this as someone who has lived in the unknown areas of New England their whole life.
I love the song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. Until I was 33, I thought the first verse said: Of the Big lake, they called it Shagoomee.
It’s not.
It’s: Of the big lake, they called Gitche Gumee.
At the same time, I knew Song of Hiawatha started with “By the shore of Gitche Gumee”. Apparently, just never put the two together.
And you never learn these things in a room by yourself… Of course, I had a crowd hear my version and fix me.
Don’t feel bad, I didn’t learn about evolution until I was in college. (Boo parochial school, BOOOOOOOOO).
Well not to worry if you ask anyone about basic American history or Geography Well it will be mostly silly answer and forget about questions about Europe or even the world 🌎 and after all lots of people believe the world is FLAT !!!! SO DO Not worry? And by the way could you answer me why Square dancing💃 called square dancing 🕺? Is il because you dance making square with your feet or dance 💃 in a square formation? Bisous.
I was 39 when I learned that “Twinkle Star”, the “Alphabet Song” and “Baa Baa Black Sheep” are all the exact same song.
During high school (1960s) a friend was laughing because her cousin had referred to the Grand Prix race as the Grand Pricks. Must have been in my mid-20s before I got the joke. It does conjure up a disturbing visual as a race….
I grew up in Massachusetts (part of New England), and in 5th grade we had these jigsaw puzzles of the US where New England was one piece. I remember thinking that kids in other parts of the country would think it was one state, not six! Definitely understand why you wouldn’t have bumped into that piece of info before.
I also never thought about Delaware, which must have been part of another piece too. And I once had a vehement argument with someone that the capital of NY had to be NYC, it had to, it just made sense…even then I thought things should make more sense than they do.
Please don’t call yourself stupid, because you are not. As a fellow victim of an alternative education, we are simply uninformed about certain facts. AKL (Always Keep Learning)
to be fair, even on the weather channel often say “and in New England” which does totally sound like a state. I think the only reason I knew different, was because i’m the kid that studied the globe….and read the encyclopedia. and read different dictionaries.
It wasn’t until my mid 30’s that learned “bridge freezes before road surface” is a measure of time before, not a spacial before.
Also, it wasn’t until my mid 20’s that I figured out the garbage truck in the joke “what has four wheels and flies” didn’t actually mean that some garbage trucks flew. But rather they had flies….
Lifelong New Englander here (I live in New Hampshire). We are quite used to people from other regions of the country never having heard of us at all. We’re only judging your state’s public school system, not you personally 😉
You’re going to be at my bookstore!!! <3
This new englander would like to point out that Rhode Island is not an island, and is in fact part of New England, NOT New York! 🙂
And uh, yeah, where you gonna be?
That The Bahamas are very close to Florida, not way further south. That New Zealand is on the opposite side of Australia than I thought it was. That Korea is not next to Vietnam. I could go on. Geography was *not* my best subject. 🤨
I discovered recently that Narwhals are indeed an actual whale and not a mythical creature as I previously believed.
I think at one time the Patriots were the Boston Patriots but that was before your time. I just wikipediaded it and they changed the name in 1971. But you should have learned that elementary school not high school!
My best friend didn’t know that Alaska wasn’t an island near Hawaii until college. That was the only way she’d seen it on maps so she just assumed.
I thought every kid around our age learned Fifty Nifty!
As a child in Knoxville, TN, we went on field trips to a place that I swear our teachers just called “Appalachia”. For years I thought there was some village near Knoxville where people lived like in the olden days. I moved back to Knoxville as an adult and it wasn’t until I saw a billboard for the Museum of Appalachia that I understood it was not a village at all.
As an adult I learned, that a relative I knew as “Tante Goti” because my mother called her that, was actually a weird doubling of the relationship my mother had with her. It translates to “auntie godmother”. And that is how I introduced her to my boyfriend at the time. I had never thought about it, like that. He was very amused.
apparently, cher is singing “gypsies, tramps, and thieves” not “thieves, thieves, tramps, and thieves.”
i just thought she really hated thieves.
Well seriously I learned today New England was not a state. Not kidding either.
Some years back, probably in my mid-30s, I learned that baby back ribs are not beef, they are pork. -lg
I learned recently that not all of Maine is a coastline. Like I didn’t even realize that ALL OF New Brunswick existed
I was born in New Mexico and the number of people, grown ass adults, who don’t realize it’s a state always amazes me. I’ve been complemented on how well I speak English, I’ve been told that companies won’t ship internationally, I’ve been asked for my passport when checking into hotels.
I usually tell people to picture a map, to see Texas and Arizona and we are the blank space in-between.
Everyone has their blind spots
And your logic on why New England would be a state instead of a region was sound.
A) Canadian here, and while we were taught a fair amount of US geography, I am honestly shook I didn’t realize that “New England” represented an area, because it totally sounds like a state-name!!
B) I live/grew-up in BC, and one of our coastal Indigenous people (peoples?) are called the Haida. As a kid, we had a pull-out couch, which Mum would always call a “Hide-a-Bed”. For most of my childhood/teenagehood, whenever Mum told us to get the “Hide-a-Bed” ready for a guest, my brain would hear/compute that as “Haida Bed”.
I thought it was sooooo cool that the Haida people had invented a bed which tucks inside of a couch! Turns out…. they didn’t….!
Ringo Starr lol. They should’ve picked somebody who could pronounce Pierre South Dakota (“peer” not like it looks).
my favorite adult learning thing isn’t mine, but I have a friend who grew up on a farm where they didn’t get good radio reception and he thought Bob Dylan sang a song about ants being his friends
Narwhals are real. Really? I was 40 when I learned this.
I just learned that Yellowstone is in Wyoming. I live in a neighboring state. All I knew before was “it’s around here somewhere.”
I was in college when my mom explained to me that “evergreen” trees always have leaves (in fall and winter too!!!)…. note the word “ever – green” …. like “forever-green”! I always tell people this one when they feel stupid about something.
I thought San Francisco was directly South of Dallas, but I don’t feel stupid. My mind just has a hole in the slot for geography.
My husband says if we have another war, he wants me to be a scout for the enemy. I think it’s very funny. I know lots of things he doesn’t know about books and art.
Remember that your brain is busy making up all kinds of wonderful new things for us to enjoy. Don’t call Jenny stupid. That’s so unkind. She’s definitely brilliant.
The expression “To make ends meet”. For forever I thought it was “ to make ‘ends meat’”. I knew what it meant, so I figured “ends meat” must be the very worst type of meat and you were REALLY poor if that’s all you had to eat. —-I’ll take my dunce cap and go sit down now….
Oh. My. God. Jenny.
WHO was your 4th Grade Social Studies Teacher?
As a New Englander, I am horrified that you didn’t know we are: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, & Vermont.
As a Retired 4th Grade Teacher, I am extremely concerned with the educational welfare of Texas’ grown children of the 70s/80s.
BUT…I still absolutely ADORE YOU!!!
WHICH New England CITY (located in WHICH New England STATE) is the book fair taking place? All SIX New England States are lovely this time of year and maybe some suggestions could be made for your free time next week.
Susan
I’m actually FROM New England and I completely understand how The Patriots got you messed up! It’s the only NFL team that comes from a group of states and I always thought that was stupid and totally unfair. Some states even get MULTIPLE teams! Ugh.
Anyway, if it makes you feel any better, I didn’t know the word “behemoth” until my forties. Yep, you read that correctly. I saw it on the news scroll outside a tv station here in NYC and asked my husband what it was. He was absolutely dumbfounded. Whenever we see the word he still shakes his head in disbelief. Hey, sometimes things just slip between the cracks I guess…
As a former Geography major, this does hurt my heart a bit. And, no, we are not renaming it to the Upper Righties. I once graded a test where Vermont, a US state, home of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream was located by a student in the Northwest Territories in Canada. Meaning, they didn’t know Vermont was a US state or they thought upper Canada was part of the U.S. sigh. But, geography is challenging to keep up with. The Northwest Territories changed in 1999, and Canada created a new territory from part of it called Nunavut. Anyway, I’m not in New England, but New England adjacent. It is very lovely there.
Oh NO! Your elementary music teacher failed you! I teach my 5th graders 50 Nifty every year!! Darn Texas education. I can’t think of anything off the top of my head that I figured out as an adult, but that’s because I can’t think of anything at all that happened before today.
i was in my 40s before i realized that Eminem (Marshall Mathers) picked that name because of his initials, the fact that it’s always fully spelled out and starts with ‘E’ prevented me connecting the dots 😅
It wasn’t until my late 20’s that I found out gloves and mittens are 2 separate things. I always thought the words were interchangeable for anything that covers your hands, just some had individual fingers and some didn’t.
Rotating tires. Every time I heard anyone talk about “rotating your tires” and paying someone to do it for them, I was like… is that not literally what your tires do all day while you’re driving? Since I got my driver’s license later in life, I was well into my 20s before I learned what rotating tires actually meant.
The c in “oscillating” is silent and also that women and men have the same number of ribs 😆 I was 18 when I learned about the silent c and 34 when I learned about the rib thing🤦🏼♀️
I can relate. My boyfriend asked me what a shit-ton was & I told him it was 2,000 shit pounds. Duh.
It amazes me that geography isn’t a priority in education. I taught high school French for 17 years and most kids had no idea where anything is located.
Because I was an avid reader at a young age I read words I didn’t know how to pronounce. For “awry” I thought it was pronounce “ahhh-reee” and I find out in public that it’s “ahh-rye”. Wtf?! This is just one example of many where I’ve embarrassed myself in public. Point being, that you aren’t stupid.
Dear Jenny,
Please don’t say you’re stupid. My wife and I had to start a tradition for ourselves. If I say to myself, “Jim, you idiot,” or call myself stupid, a jackass, or the like, she will reply, “Stop that. You can’t call my best friend names like that around me.” I do the same for her.
You definitely aren’t stupid. I think you’re a genius. I know some people who really are stupid, and you aren’t like them (for one thing, genuinely stupid people almost never realize that they’re stupid. Often they think they’re really smart. They tend to lack curiosity and be highly allergic to learning.)
My stepfather used to tell me, “Remember, there’s always some dumb son of a bitch who doesn’t get the word; don’t judge. Some days you’re the dumb son of a bitch. Ignorance is different from stupidity. Ignorance is not your fault as long as you do something about it.”
Being old, I’ve lost count of my dumb son of a bitch days.
I tend to forget names when I’m supposed to remember them, like when I’m supposed to introduce people. The other day I forgot the name of an organization where I worked for three years. The worst was when I was telling a coworker about my family and suddenly couldn’t remember the names of my grandkids. Those kids and our daughter lived with my wife and me for years and I helped raise them, and suddenly I could picture them but not name them. I definitely felt stupid, but I don’t think I am. I hope I’m not. I hope that if I was stupid, it wouldn’t occur to me to wonder about it.
TIL (at age 53) — thanks Marvin in comment #12! — that Hawaii Five-O was name for Hawaii being the 50th state and not for cops being nicknamed ‘the 5-O.’ And that the nickname originated from the TV show and not vice versa. 🤯
I could not love you more now that I know you thought New England was a state. Jenny you are the absolute best.
I just introduced my 4th grader to the Nifty Fifty song, and she looked at me like I was a complete alien 😂 but she is being tested on it this year, and she loves to sing. So why not give her a mnemonic device?!
She does love when I sing Yakko Warner’s “Nations of the World” song though! 🎶
I live in New England now but grew up in the Midwest. And we had these big wooden baby puzzles when I was growing up in which all of New England was fused together into one block, because what toddler has the small motor coordination to put RI in its proper place? So we were all kind of taught that it’s one chonk. Don’t feel bad.
I assume you were thinking about New Hampshire. Stupid was my boss’s sister saying she didn’t want to move to New England with her boyfriend because she didn’t want to move to Europe.
The first time I’d ever seen the word pterodactyl in writing…and I read the word aloud to my now ex husband, pronouncing the P. He just stared at me. Then he pointed out that I was in fact an English major. Then he told me how embarrassed I should be. I still think about it.
I was an embarrassingly older adult before I realized that exit numbers on the highways actually coincide with the mile markers.
I’m a lifelong New Englanders and living in Connecticut, and I can tell you Boston is NOT our capital.
But our capital of our state is Hartford, which is probably one of the places I would not think of as logical for our capital.
And NYC makes way more sense as a capital for NY than Albany.
Actually New Haven and Hartford fought over which would be our state capital for awhile before Hartford won. New Haven is far more interesting than Hartford, and we have the world’s best Apizza here.
And we have great independent bookstores here in CT.
I have the states figured out due to a puzzle map of the USA I had as a kid, but not the capitals.
And lord help me if you were to ask me some of the other countries on our planet outside of Western Europe or South or Central America and parts of the Caribbean, which I would probably guess most of them right.
There is only so much room we have in our brains. And I like to say my memory is full, so as I age, I deleted some of the old stuff to make room for the new or more important stuff.
Let us know which bookstores you will be in each state on which dates so we can come out to support your new book and get a signed copy?
I was a fully grown adult saying “Well, don’t go kicking a gift horse in the mouth.” I thought I was quite profound until my husband, looking at me equal parts horrified and amused, said “Don’t go kicking ANY horse in the mouth, you sadist!!”😂
How did you NOT learn “Fifty Nifty” Jenny? If I am not mistaken, we are the same age and I learned it in elementary school. Maybe it was a more urban Texas school thing because we didn’t have to learn about growing cotton and artificial cow insemination? Idk. I grew up in DFW and we definitely learned it..and performed it at a school concert…in elementary.
What did I learn as an adult that I should have learned as a kid? Idk. A lot probably.
I was in college before I realized that people were not saying, “Take it for granite.”
Well, this finally answers the question I was once asked at an airline check-in desk… “What state is Vermont in?”
No judgment here… I was well into my forties before I realized/learned that pork was NOT, despite the ad campaigns that told me otherwise as a child, “The Other White Meat™.”
You know those “you could be entitled to compensation” radio ads? I feel like I should be compensated somehow for all the times I chose pork over beef thinking I was making a heart-healthy decision
Don’t worry. Shitlist is most definitely a word.
Jenny, you are not stupid! You are marvelous and you’re coming to New England! Where will you be?
I was well into my thirties before I learned that German Shepards are herding dogs. (Well, and people, but I knew that part.)
Balanced it out by being the person to teach my husband that ponies are not, in fact, baby horses.
Epitome is pronounced eh-peh-tohm, isn’t it? Nope! It’s pronounced eh-pity-me. Heavy sigh. I’d only ever Read the word!
Also, did you know that L.A. and Los Angeles are the same place?!
Grr.
I was in my 30s – when I realized the phrase was “make ends meet” and not “meat.” I understood the meaning – but I just always assumed it was like you brought home enough money to put some meat on the table for your family … and that, that was where the phrase came from…
Somewhat similar to the confusion the New England Patriots caused you, I was definitely surprised to learn that the Golden State Warriors are an NBA team and not from some California school called Golden State.
Oh! And much more recently I was shocked to realize how far north Bermuda is — my brain had it down in the West Indies/Caribbean vicinity but it’s actually at about the same latitude as South Carolina!
Don’t feel bad. I’m older than you are and just learned this information about New England from you. I had no idea it wasn’t a state. How did that information escape me for 63 years?
For me, it’s pronunciations (because I read so much). I grew up in Alberta Canada, essentially the Texas of the North. I also learned nothing about history and geography. So when I went to college in Montana at age 18, I pronounced Navajo “Nava-Joe” to outrageous laughter among a big group of friends.
TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO funny since I am from New England, New Hampshire to be exact, and had never thought about your conundrum. New England, you will love it no matter where you go!
I have never in my 75 years heard “Fifty States”. Interesting.
PS: I have read most all of your books. Introduced to your writings by a friend years ago.
Thanks for everything. I’ve actually learned much.
Michael
I thought manure was pronounced man-yer.
I was in my 40’s when I found out it is in fact a wheelbarrow and not a wheel barrel.
I still have to sing the multiplication rock songs to myself for some of the numbers. Some of us don’t even learn as adults. But this is why God gave us phone calculators. And friends.
I grew up in the SF Bay Area of California, I’m almost 59, and this is the first I’ve ever heard of a Fifty Nifty song.
Um, Jenny… you also might want to know that Wakko isn’t a mouse. He’s an Animaniac.
Of course you’re not stupid! But you must have made a typo when you typed “Ringo Star” because Sir Richard Starkey added a second “r” to his last name when he decided use an alias.
‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy…
When you hold up your left hand with the palm down and fingers together but thumb out it makes an L. For Left. This would have been very handy as I don’t intrinsically know left from right. I have to think about it.
I only realized quite late in life that the earth, viewed from below the North Pole, spins from West to East, left to right, anti-clockwise. Not the other way around. So that’s why Australia is a day ahead of Canada! Duh. Should’ve paid more attention in Geography class.
That tuna isn’t made from dolphins… 🤦🏻♀️! I thought dolphin friendly tuna was like quorn but now feel like an idiot because it was so obviously the nets catching the dolphins with the tuna FISH. Why did I think people ate dolphins😭?!??
(ps. I nearly posted the last line as ‘Why did I think people are dolphins’ because of predictive text sabotaging me!)
I don’t know if this counts, but I thought Vann Morrison and Jim Morrison were the same person until I was in my 30’s and the movie confused the hell out of me when I listened to the CD with Moondance. I also thought Dr. Strange was the same as Dr. Strangelove, so I was pretty confused at some previews.
Oh no I just remembered another! I thought that Sting sang ‘I’m an alien, I’m a little alien’ in Englishman in New York. I know, I’ll see myself out…
You are not alone…
I knew that New England was a group of states, BUT your point about lacking a “the” is very valid and I also don’t understand how they all got together and have a sportsball team.
As far as Animaniacs goes, that is how my homeschooled children learned the states and capitals in record time.
When I was streaming “Thunderbolts” and Congressman Bucky Barnes (mmm, eye candy!) tells another congressman that someone was “ductile,” it sounded so intelligent coming out of his mouth. The other congressman repeated the word a little dumbfoundedly, maybe like he didn’t know what it meant (or he didn’t believe Barnes) – and I had to pause the movie and go look the meaning because I was dumbfounded. Turns out I knew what it meant, but I had forgotten. But when’s the last time any of us had to go look up a word from a movie? Smh. I did NOT feel my usual intelligence in that moment.
Gridiron is not pronounced “grideron”
Recently my husband and son were talking about someone bow fishing. I asked “How do they get their bows back if the fish swims off?” They almost fell in the floor laughing. Also, I think the spellcheck problem is because it’s two words: shit list. But that’s just me.
I always thought ‘save for a rainy day’ meant ‘save it for some fun when it’s raining bc it will be crappy weather so of course it will be cool to do so thing fun”.
I didn’t realize it was saving money to fix a leaky roof when it rains. That isn’t fun.
Not to pile on, but Ringo’s last name has two Rs. Prolly autocorrect, but just in case.
I’m sorry, but aren’t the Animaniacs cats, not mice?
Similar to the Maine coast thing- I’m Canadian, had a pretty good education, and actually like geography (and usually smart about it)…but! I was in my 40’s before I realized New Brunswick isn’t another island in the Maritimes, and is actually “attached” to Maine 😅😅😅
As someone from New Hampshire (part of New England) don’t beat yourself up. Sometimes small states gather together to feel larger and more secure; not much different than a school of fish. And to answer your question, I have learned more within the past few years of adulthood than I could possibly list without embarrassment and mortification. Isn’t it nice that we never stop learning?!
I thought reindeer were fictional, like unicorns, until I saw them in the opening ceremony of the winter Olympics when Norway hosted back in 1994.
I literally get dumber every day because I realize how much I know nothing about. Geography is just one of a LOOOOONG list of things I am ignorant of. I like to think that realizing this makes me smarter though… 🙂
I found out that learning HTML is not the same as computer programming…
A yak isn’t a bird (look at the word — it should be a long-legged bird!) and buffalo aren’t extinct. That second one I learned after moving from the east coast, where I learned that they were “driven to extinction” during the early days of colonization, to Oklahoma, where they just wander in the wild like they own the place and drivers are advised to remain in their cars while observing them. Who knew??
This is so embarrassing but I was an adult before I really grasped that Alaska wasn’t an island like Hawaii. It was always in its own little box like Hawaii so I just assumed!
I’m constantly learning. Be gentle on yourself! The one that first comes to mind is when someone in my book club thought the underground railroad was an actual railroad, which came out when we read the amazing book by Colson Whitehead. She wasn’t alone but most of us got a good laugh out of it.
My sister and I took the long way to our aunt’s house (aka, we got a little lost), and were trying to count how many state capitals we’d each been to. Sang the Animaniacs song, without missing a word, including all the asides. (Elvis used to hang out there a lot, you know.)
There’s a lot I still don’t know as an adult, but state capitals will be locked into my head until my last breath.
I grew up, and mostly lived, in Seattle. Which has a gay-friendly and thriving neighborhood called Capital Hill. It took me a very long time to realize that Capital in Washington was a very different place, I still (at 55 yo) have to think it through.
When I was a little kid our errands would frequently take us past a Carpet store. I was in third or fourth grade before I realized they weren’t selling Car Pets.
Don’t feel too badly…I’ve never heard of the Nifty Fifty States song *or* the state capitals song!
As a native New Englander that now lives in the Armpit of this Nation, it took me several years of living in this swamp before I realized that Florida is really really BIG (compared to, say, the size of Massachusetts) and because of that, no, you cannot get from Orlando to Miami in just oh, 2 or 3 hours 😣
My son was in the school choir and they sang Goodbye Yellow Brick Road at a concert. They lyrics are: You can’t plant me in your penthouse. All these years I thought it was: Your can’t beat meeting your pen pal. I had a pen pal as a kid and I got to meet her so I just thought those were the words.
For #60–there is a silly children’s book called : “P is For Pterydactyl”
I always heard a silly song with silly words of “Mairsy dotes and dozy dotes and littley lamzy divey”. It was only as an adult that I learned the words of “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy”.
France is bacon
So I’m constantly using the phrase “I was today years old when I learned” because, well, I’m learning stuff that I thought I already my whole life! 🤣 And I’m 49! 🤣 So you’re not alone in unlearning things you thought you knew, and relearning the new thing. ❤️
Side note, I still know all the states in alphabetical order, which I first learned in 2nd grade. 🤷♂️☺️
Also, part of why I adore you is because I know that if you posted in someone’s comments and then noticed a typo (in this case, a missing word) after sending the comment, it would drive you as crazy as it’s driving me right now!!! 🤣 🤬🤣🤬
You knew one thing the makers of that cartoon didn’t. They used capitol (building) when they meant capital (city). You’d think someone would have caught that. As for things I’ve learned decades after I should have, I know there have been plenty, but I’m stumped for an example. As for geography, my last class in that was seventh or eighth grade. Social studies in high school was World History, American History, and Government. And that’s where my knowledge is largely stuck. Peking, not Beijing. Bombay, not Mumbai. And at some point they added an ocean (the Southern) without notifying me.
I was well into my 30s when I learned that narwhals are in fact real animals and not mythological creatures. (I thought they were like the unicorns of the sea.)
As God is my witness, I thought the Ramones were really brothers.
I learn at least 3 things a day that most people come out of the womb somehow knowing
I thought I heard owls hooting my entire life. Turns out they are mourning doves. And I argued with my friend, so sure of myself which made it worse. I live in “the upper righties” – it’s a beautiful time of year to visit us New Englanders!
This is a silly one. I was driving from Iowa to Arizona and was in the middle of the middle of nowhere Oklahoma and I could only get one radio station (this was before podcasts). Unfortunately, playing was the Rush Limbaugh Show, which I had never listened to. During the show, he used the work “ebullient” pronouncing it e-booly-ent. I thought “you dumb fuck. Everybody knows it pronounced eb-you-lent.” When I got to my destination, I looked up the work in the dictionary and discovered that Rush was saying it correctly. Now, I was the dumb fuck!
I didn’t realize until last year that “Nova Scotia” means “New Scotland”. It’s so obvious. I am 53 😩
You can’t even just call New England The Northeast, because then you have to include New York (and maybe New Jersey I’m not sure and sometimes Pennsylvania).
WAIT! WHERE IN NEW ENGLAND??? can I come? I live in Maine
. It’s a state🩵😜
Oh! I love the Nowhere Bookshop. It’s so magical! The town is so pretty to explore. It was my favorite stop during a Vermont road trip we took.
And I’m dumb 😂 I thought you said the Northshire Bookshop. So ignore my above comment. But also, stop there if you’re in New England. You won’t regret it!
My Grandpa was from Kansas so when I was little (3 or 4) I asked if it was really black and white like in The Wizard of Oz. Of course he said yes. I was waaaaaaay older than I care to admit when I realized he was messing with me.
Also Wackos America is the only reason I know all the state capitals. And they made us square dance in California too. No clue why.
I literally just watched these exact same two videos with my husband and son last night. Cue the twilight zone music.
As a New Englander, I hope you have a wonderful visit to our area. Ever find out what state/city you’ll be visiting?
And “shitlist” should definitely be a word.
NEIBA’s 52nd Fall Conference will be held September 9-11, 2025 at the Manchester Doubletree Downtown hotel in Manchester, NH. You can fly into Manchester airport or Boston airport and then drive an hour or so north to Manchester. Have fun!!!!
I, too, was raised in the Texas education system and I, too, did not learn this until I was a whole adult (around 30) and embarrassed myself in front of my new husband.
I feel you! I live in New York and for years thought we were part of New England. (Until a Match date informed me that I was an idiot for not knowing that New York is not part of New England. Rude, but he wasn’t wrong. lol) Which makes no sense considering we’re named after York, England (and indirectly the Duke of York). Ok fine, New York was originally New Amsterdam (a Dutch colony), but it was later taken over by the English and renamed in the 1600s. So, how the heck weren’t we absorbed into New England? haha
I thought Alaska was attached to Seattle.
Using your knuckles and the valleys between to count out the months. Place both hands together with the index finger knuckles touching. This tells you what month has 30 or 31 days.
No valley between Jul and Aug blew my mind. How did it take 40+ years for me to learn this?
Visited Canada for the first time in the early 1970s. Husband is driving, I’m map-reading. We’re aiming for a landmark bridge, and I find it: the Pont Bridge. After driving in circles for almost an hour, I notice another ‘Pont Bridge’ on the map. When we (finally) stopped at a gas station to sort it out, we learned that “Pont” is the French word for “bridge”. (There were a LOT of ‘Pont Bridges’ on the map).
When he stopped laughing, the clerk gave us excellent directions.
In my late 40’s I found out narwals are real. I thought they were like unicorns.
It happens all. the. time., especially when one grows up with older brothers.
My memory problems won’t help me recall what exactly, but there have been multiple times I was called out for something and I think “where the f did i learn that” when the answer comes “of fuc-ing course it was one of my brothers.”
Apparently they thought it was hilarious to “teach” me things because I would just believe them.
I learned one last night. Ore-Ida potatoes are named such because the factory is on the Oregon and Idaho border!!
I thought New Jersey was a city in New York until I was well into my thirties.
I miss Animaniacs, the 3 could solve just about anything in 20 minutes. In June I traveled to Paris with family and then was on to Lisbon alone for a few weeks. My friend said, “are you going to travel back to the US before going to Lisbon?” I stared like he had 3 heads and was like huh why? He said well aren’t you going to South America. He does live, born and raised, on the island of Oahu so I give a little grace but dear goodness!
Just this week I learned that I should have been spelling skewif as skew-whiff.
I forever get Ohio and Iowa mixed up! If someone is talking about one of them, I have to ask if it’s on the right or left. (I’m in Wisconsin, kinda in the middle. Sort of.) I blame it on how they both have four letters, begin with vowels, three syllables, and there’s just too many i’s and o’s going on…
Mouse? Surely the animaniacs aren’t mice, are they?
To this day, I read the word CHAOS as “sha-ohs”. And then correct it to “kay-aws”. And continue to read. I don’t know what age I was when I realized the KAY-AWS people were talking about was the same as the SHAY-AWS I was reading about, and that I’d been mispronouncing it FOREVER. But apparently old enough to firmly embed the incorrect pronunciation in my head, at least when reading (I’m now 65). As to autocorrect saying ‘shitlist’ is 2 words, this is the same function that, for years, would turn ‘fuck’ into ‘duck’. So what do they know?
My husband was 18-years-old before he learned “leftie-loosey, righty-tighty” and I was in my twenties before I figured out that goats and sheep were different species (I legit thought goats were boys and sheep were girls of the same species for my entire childhood.)
Oh Jenny, you’re definitely not alone. Who made up the rules for the sound of letters? Why is a “c” a hard sound like in camel and cake, but a soft sound (more like an s) when it’s in Cinderella? Why is a “g” a hard sound in goat and gallop but a soft sound (like a j) in gym and general? (And I was an elementary school teacher for 12 years, 5 of those in kindergarten. I had no way of explaining this to my kiddos except to say the English language is tricky.)
Oh geez, don’t make me say this out loud. It took me far too long to figure out that Winnie-the-Pooh’s friend Piglet is a piglet. I remember being with my Dad watching the cartoon and seriously asking him, “I wonder what kind of animal Piglet is?” The look he gave me.
Admittance day. When is your state’s admittance day? Nevada’s is October 31 (Not a joke). The date it was made a state. Got into a very LOUD argument in the school hallway with the 6th grade social studies teacher. He was from one of the original 13th. They don’t have that. I was teaching my special needs kids New Jersey history and wanted to know the right date to tell them and he had to never heard of such nonsense.
The principal had to break it up
In 1965 my 63 year old dad asked his young Latino coworkers what they meant by a “roach clip”, and they told him to ask me. I (age 20) hadn’t a clue. 5 years later I was living in a house full of hippies. Late one night I was awakened by heavy footsteps running up and down the stairs and the frantic cry “We lost a lid! We lost a lid!” Apparently picturing some sort of canning operation happening in the kitchen, I told them not to worry, I had some extra jar lids they could use. Guess we all contain our clueless chasms of one kind of another.
I will never forget being in the car with my very best friend when she realized BBQ and barbeque are the same thing. It was wonderful. Same car trip that another friend realized there is no such thing as East Virginia – just Virginia and West Virgina.
That all major bus/train stations (Amtrak/Greyhound, etc.) are named Union Station.
This is the thing I learned as an adult.
I was righteously pissed off when I learned from none other than HBO, via the 1st episode of “The Watchmen,” that the Tulsa, OK, race riots happened. Thanks, Merica, for the totally relevant education. Hide, delete, deny you stoopid shits! Now we have a fake wrestling promoter heading the Dept of Education. Does anyone else feel accurately informed of her excellent qualifications after hearing her pronounce AI as, “A One”? I digress, but still…
When you drive a rental or borrowed car you don’t have to get out to see what side the gas tank is on. There is a little
Gas can icon on the gas gauge that tells you.
You are not stupid, you are one of the smartest people! WTF Texas though…
Yeah but figuring out how to actually OPEN said gas tank can be a dance of fools
There’s a youtube video of a woman who thinks New Mexico is part of Mexico and New England is part of England. I thought it was just a skit but now… I think you don’t know what no one taught you and she’s made logical assumptions, just like you did.
This is the literal first time I heard “The Nifty Fifty” so you are not alone. <3
I grew up in suburban Washington and they made us learn square dancing too. Apparently Henry Ford campaigned to have it taught in public schools as a racist backlash against jazz. 🙁 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzCBWr5Ptgc
Ok, so I thought it was “opossum” and later in life, my now ex-husband ‘corrected’ me and told me it was “possum”. And a bunch of other people told me he was right. Funny thing: I just Googled it before commenting because I wondered why I thought there was an “o” at the front. Turns out, I was RIGHT. Opossums are native to North and South America and possums are native to Australia (I’m an American). As someone also raised in Texas, I guess there’s finally a win for us. Side note: I also thought it was “Waterburger” for the longest time. I thought it was some sort of name to promote the juiciness of the burgers?
Still…I love finding out that I was right and my ex-husband continues to just get dumber and dumber. This is a good day.
I found someone who has similar taxidermy and weird ojects interests as you do:
https://adamsestateauctions.com/auction/adamsestateauctionscom-5
The motto for Vermont is “the green mountain state”. I live in Quebec and speak French. One day while driving in Vermont staring at the license plate in front of us, with an outline of green mountains and the motto below it, my partner and I suddenly got it: “Ver”(t)= green and “mont” = mountain. Oh!
I’m Australian and I was today years old when I found out that New England wasn’t a state in its own right (here it refers to a region within a state).
I know it is going to be cold when the “windshield” factor is less than the actual temperature!
It was just last year that I learned that Mexico is part of North America! I mean, it’s north of Central America – what else could it be. But still . . .
As a kid I saved the little cotton squares that come in boxes with cheap jewelry … when I had enough I was going to melt them down to make a candle. I still don’t know where I picked that idea up, but realized sometime around junior high that it wouldn’t work.
Big fan of calling it “The Upper Righties”
I am 38 and just recently discovered how to clap hands. I am not disabled, I’ve just clapped the wrong way all those years and never seemed to understand why all my birthday videos looked bizarre.