29 People Shared The Things They Learned Embarrassingly Late, And I'm At A Loss
"I thought the phrase 'mix by hand' meant to literally shove your hands in the batter and mix."
1. "I have a cousin who quotes Yogi Berra on a fairly regular basis, and it wasn't until last Thanksgiving that I realized he's a real person, and that my cousin hasn't been admiring the words of Yogi Bear all this time."
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"I tried to play it cool but I was totally in shock."
2. "I didn’t know that women could get pregnant without having an orgasm. I learned that this year. At age 26."
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3. "I only recently found out that ponies are not baby horses, but full-sized ponies."
4. "Once, when I was 20, a friend told me he was sad and that he had blue balls. I didn't know what blue balls meant yet, so I asked him if there was anything I could do to help."
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5. "I was 16 when I found out that the rearview mirror in a car wasn't actually called a 'review mirror' because you 'reviewed' what was behind you."
6. "I thought buffalos were birds, and that buffalo wings were from said birds."
7. "That guys don't have to squeeze their dicks to get their pee to come out."
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8. "When I was 13, I thought an orgasm and an organism were the same thing, and gave an entire speech to my class at my new school about how I wanted to be a marine biologist and work with marine orgasms. Everyone was laughing and I didn't know why."
"A girl I'd just made friends with had to fill me in after class. Turns out, they are definitely not the same thing."
9. "I was 20 when I learned that white meat and dark meat come from the same chicken."
10. "That women don’t give birth out of their rectums."
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11. "I thought the phrase 'mix by hand' meant to literally shove your hands in the batter and mix, not use a spoon or a mixer. I didn't learn the truth until my mother found me wrist-deep in brownie batter."
12. "That Houston is not the name of the guy astronauts talk to."
13. "I thought lions and tigers were the same animal all throughout my teenage years — that lions were the boys, and tigers were the girls."
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14. "That 'in-law' means literally related by law."
15. "When I was a kid, I somehow believed that every human has their own individual color of pee, and I was always so disappointed that mine was boring yellow when I could have had blue, green, or pink."
16. "That limes weren’t just unripe lemons."
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17. "Until I was about 30, I thought 'Broadway' was one theater, since they almost always refer to the entire district collectively, rather than the theater itself."
18. "I thought guerilla warfare meant humans in a war against gorillas."
19. "I was about 10 when I realized every state doesn't have their own brand of cars. Everyone in my house drove a Chevrolet, so I figured it was the 'state car,' and that maybe Texas had Honda, California had Ford, etc..."
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20. "That ambulances don’t patrol around like police cars."
21. "I was a sophomore in high school when I learned that West Virginia is a state. I always assumed it worked like 'Southern California' or 'Northern California.'"
22. "That rottweilers are not just fat Dobermans."
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23. "I didn't know that lambs were baby sheep until I was in my thirties. I was horrified."
24. "I thought the 'do not pass' road sign literally meant 'do not die here.' I had to ask my grandpa what would happen if someone got into a car accident and died there."
25. "I only recently learned that a wolverine is an actual animal."
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26. "When I was younger, I used to think people only lived until age 40, mostly because my parents got more and more anxious the closer they got to it."
27. "That the Washington Redskins play for Washington, DC, not the state of Washington."
28. "I thought 'prima donna' was 'pre-Madonna' and that it referred to a singer who embodied the era before Madonna."
29. "I was at least 11 when I figured out that 'elbow grease' isn't a secretion that comes from your elbows when you clean things vigorously..."
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"My mother used to say, 'Put some elbow grease into it!' and I'd start scrubbing like my life depended on it...and occasionally tapping my right elbow to see if anything had come out."
What about you? Did you learn something like this embarrassingly — and hilariously — late? Tell us about in the the comments section, and you could be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed Community post!
Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.