Things We Should Have Learned Sooner

Carex

I was spelling "Sweet tea" as "Sweat tea" for YEARS before someone finally pointed out I was confusing the two words.
DOH!!

Also, if you look at the gas gauge on your car there is a little icon of the gas pump. That isn't to tell you it's the gas gauge. it's got a little arrow on one side of the icon to tell you where you can put the gas in at without having to get out of the car and look. It's literally GAS GOES THERE >

When you live in the country, feeding birds bread from your car while you wait and listen to the radio is fine. Do it in a large city and it can cause a traffic jam as hundreds of pigeons descend on the sidewalk and shit all over everyone's cars. My bad, L.A.! My bad!

Oh, also, when you are cooking don't pour grease down your sink. Even with dish soap or warm water. Just because it doesn't clog up your sink doesn't mean it's not a problem. Grease congeals in the sewage lines and some poor asshole has to crawl in there and flush it out. Instead put some aluminum foil in a bowl and drip the grease into it then when it cools just fold up the foil ball and throw it in the trash. It would save your city a lot of money if everyone did this.

Auspice

@Carex said in Things We Should Have Learned Sooner:

Instead put some aluminum foil in a bowl and drip the grease into it then when it cools just fold up the foil ball and throw it in the trash.

Unless it's bacon grease. Then collect it in a jar and use it in some of your cooking or in recipes for things like biscuits.

...because it makes 'em super delicious.
(...okay yes I do a lot of southern cooking >.>)

Monogram

That drawer under below the oven? That's not for hiding pan and trays or storage space. It's a warming rack.

I had no idea.

WTFE

When you hit a new word reading, you need to check it in a dictionary before speaking it.

You don't want to know how many years I was saying "epitome" wrong before someone corrected me.

Or "risible" for that matter.

Auspice

@WTFE said in Things We Should Have Learned Sooner:

When you hit a new word reading, you need to check it in a dictionary before speaking it.

At the same time- don't make fun of people for mispronouncing a word. Since so, so many of us are like this. Tons of us are readers and introverts. We read and write words vastly more than we ever speak/hear them.

Paris

@Auspice english is my second language and I'm not from the US, so with spoken words I sometimes either get it wrong or have to ask, even if I've used that word in text for a while.

Carex

@Paris Don't feel bad, most Americans use words wrong all the time. English is a messed up language.
My land lord used to give her daughter "Exuberating Cream" to "Exuberant" her face and prevent pimples.

The word she was looking for was actually "Exfoliating Cream" but no one ever seemed to correct her and I wasn't about to get on her bad side by doing it. Besides, the mistake was kind of poetic. Using the face wash did seem to make her skin very happy and relaxed.

Paris

That's amazing.

Thenomain

@WTFE said in Things We Should Have Learned Sooner:

When you hit a new word reading, you need to check it in a dictionary before speaking it.

You don't want to know how many years I was saying "epitome" wrong before someone corrected me.

Or "risible" for that matter.

You know the singer Adele? Having ducked out of a lot of modern culture, and having never heard this name ever in my life, I spent a good year and a half calling her "Ah-dah-lay".

Which, coming to think about it, is far prettier and more interesting than "Ah-dell", but oh-well.

WTFE

I like your take on it better.

I assumed "a dell" because, well, American singer. But "a doll, eh?" is much nicer-sounding. I applaud your imagination.

surreality

@WTFE I think she's a Brit, actually. The singing voice (very American blues) and the speaking voice (very not American blues) are drastically different. It's a head-spinner the first time you hear her actually talk.

Catsmeow

Everyone knows the:
Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the other side

However, my sister was like yeah it's a suicide joke. I'm like no. Nuh-uh. It's a bad dad joke. Then I said it again. Realized death was 'the other side' and was like OMG... my... my brain is broken.

That joke isn't dumb, it's dark.

Carex

I found out a while ago that there are a great many musicals on you tube and a whole subculture of animators who do animatics to the songs in musicals telling the plays.

https://youtu.be/oGs4jb1pCf8?list=PLZ2lamdAZ20A5AW-fEz2-Nk4K_a0fCxSw <-- The Count of Monte Cristo with ponies.
https://youtu.be/wCQst9ruq0w?list=PLkfQanB8u3XfLop2gGzgzWuhDIQcuaPgG <- Matilda songs.

Basically name your favorite musical and there are probably 10 versions of it on youtube.

Also, the best anime every made is only on youtube here:
https://youtu.be/V6kJKxvbgZ0?list=PLuAOJfsMefuej06Q3n4QrSSC7qYjQ-FlU - Sword Art Online: Abridged. (A parody)

surreality

@Carex You just reminded me of this: https://youtu.be/TgnIjJexut4 -- Hellsing Abridged.

There are multiple eps of it after this. I'm pretty sure most people have seen this, but if you haven't become aware of this yet, it may just be the laugh you need today.

Violence/language/political-correctness-not-remotely-in-evidence warning for anyone tempted to view at work or easily grossed out or offended.

Coin

Dragonball Z Abridged is fucking brilliant, especially once you get past the first 6-7 episodes and they start to drop the dumber stuf and become truly fucking epicly hilarious.

Scorn

On mispronunciations: When I was little, I ran across the word 'antique' in a book I was reading, and for quite a while, I pronounced it 'an-tih-cue.'

Life hack I wish I knew sooner: If the volume on your phone is crap, put it in a bowl. The concave shape amplifies the sound.

Roz

For many years of my young life, I thought "albeit" was pronounced "all-bay" as if it were French. Who the fuck knows why.

Arkandel

When I was a teenager I was discovering the internet along with a buddy, and for some reason we were fixating on witty/cool quotes written by assorted people to put them randomly in our .sigs.

... This isn't the cringing part just yet.

So we were parsing our way through this gigantic text file cherry-picking the best taglines out of there, when we noticed a great number of the best of those were attributed to "Anon".

For a long time we were both very impressed by the fact that Anon dude was pretty funny!

Yeah.

Coin

@Roz said in Things We Should Have Learned Sooner:

For many years of my young life, I thought "albeit" was pronounced "all-bay" as if it were French. Who the fuck knows why.

In some places, it's actually pronounced 'al-bait'. [shrugs]

Tinuviel

@Arkandel There is a leading... I'll say hypothesis.. that anything attributed to 'anon' that goes back more than a hundred years was probably coined by a woman.