The absolute dumbest epiphanies you've had in your life.

[The Darknight Detective]

In a 1960s issue of PLASTIC MAN, the hero met a Russian villain whose name was written as "Ivan Byturnozov." I mentally read it as "By-turn-o-zov."

Maybe twenty years later, I looked at it again, and realized that this was not the correct pronunciation.

Reminds me of a comic-book epiphany of mine from 44 years ago. In Legion of Super-Heroes #3, I discovered a character named Chameleon Boy who had the ability to change his appearance at will. As a 7 year old, though, I had never seen the word "chameleon" before in print (I had heard the word before, FWIW) and pronounced it chama-lee-own. Sometime that year, I watching Wild Kingdom with my family when Marlin Perkins started talking about an animal that was a chameleon because it could blend in with its surroundings. Ding! Ding! Ding! I now knew how to pronounce the word.

[adkal]

Quinoa

Very 'popular' mispronunciation...

Qin-o-a
Quin-o-a



Dunedin

There's a road in the town I'm from, and most people seem to call it 'Dune-din'. Including postmen.

It's Dun-Eden.

It's also a city in New Zealand and when I was booking tickets to go there I used the 'local' pronunciation and the travel agent looked at me with a 'yeh what?' look in his eyes...

I realised some pronunciations aren't necessarily 'wrong', they're just 'local'.

local.jpg

Denny O'Neil et al's insistence on pronouncing 'Ra's' wrong, though, is a different matter (Nolanverse got it right )

[dancj]

For years I thought Andy Helfer's surname was Hefler. That still rolls off my tongue better.

[adkal]

Big Barda

I kept thinking they had miswritten it and that it was supposed to be BarAda.

No idea why.


A friend of mine used to call Darkseid 'Dark-seed'. I can see why, but I was adamant it was 'Dark-Side'.


Joys of the internet, where such info is now accessible

[Vinsanity]

Putting mushrooms in a microwave is a good meal.

[Clark_Kent]

Until I was almost 20, I thought the lyrics to "Dirty Deeds" was "Dirty Deeds and the Dunderchief." I never understood the song, like "what the hell is a dunderchief? Is that a Native American tribe or something I've never heard of? The Dunder Tribe, and this is about their Chief?" Lol Surprisingly, it was finally hearing the parody cover with the line "Dirty Deeds and they're DONE WITH SHEEP" that got me to realize the real lryics! "Sheep doesn't rhyme with Chief...wait a minute..." and it led me finally to "Done Dirt Cheap". This was pre-internet, so if you didn't have the album insert with the lyrics you were in trouble.

Also, I grew up listening to an oldies station (my Dad's favorite), and it went over my head how often the songs were about drugs. They were written at that time to say it without saying it to begin with, but it was quite a revelation when I figured it out.

Additionally, as a young child I thought Robin (of Batman &) was based entirely on Robin Hood and wondered why he wore red & yellow instead of all green. I was probably 10 when it occured to me that those are robin (bird) colors. I felt pretty dumb lol

[The Darknight Detective]

Until I was almost 20, I thought the lyrics to "Dirty Deeds" was "Dirty Deeds and the Dunderchief." I never understood the song, like "what the hell is a dunderchief? Is that a Native American tribe or something I've never heard of? The Dunder Tribe, and this is about their Chief?" Lol Surprisingly, it was finally hearing the parody cover with the line "Dirty Deeds and they're DONE WITH SHEEP" that got me to realize the real lryics! "Sheep doesn't rhyme with Chief...wait a minute..." and it led me finally to "Done Dirt Cheap". This was pre-internet, so if you didn't have the album insert with the lyrics you were in trouble.

Heh. Trust me, you're not the only one who had that problem.

[Tien Long]

Couple of other dumb epiphanies:

- For the longest time, I didn't get the meaning of "bar none." For instance, "He was, bar none, the best fighter in the world!" I always thought it was a phrase that was used merely for emphasis. It showed that something was truly incredible, amazing, or unbelievable. I honestly thought that it came from this story of a bar where hard-drinking folks were tough and mean! Then, just a couple of days ago, its true meaning dawned upon me. "Bar" doesn't mean the bar where you drink something, but rather "prevent" or "exclude." So the phrase really means "excluding no one." That really makes a lot more sense! Still, I do miss the bar though .

- The other phrase that really got me was "make ends meet." For the longest time, I thought it was "make End's meat." I thought it was one of those phrases that had a nebulous origin, but was related to making or cooking meat. I figured, yeah, cooking meat is pretty hard! Thus, I can understand that a person trying to "make End's meat" is going through a tough time.

One day, however, I was reading the little description of Spider-Man featured back in beginnings of the "Amazing Spider-Man" series during the early 90s and happened upon this:

Armed with his wondrous web-shooters, the reluctant super hero struggles with sinister super-villains, making ends meet and maintaining some semblance of a normal life!

What the?! "Making ends meet?!" Really?! It was that "meet?!" I kinda get it now. One has difficulty putting ends together. But yeah, I still prefer the meat .

[dancj]

Just this weekend I realised the pun in the name of the film "Free Willy". Over here in England we were all to distracted by the word "willy" to notice the pun on "free will"

[Starter Set]

Mario runs faster if you keep the B button pressed on.

I remember spending quite a long time as a kid wondering how to pass one level in the first Mario on NES. More precisely one devilish long jump.

To never read the game manual is a bad habit i kept for most of my gaming "career", till of course they stopped making those things. (funnily enough i do read the pdf manuals sometimes now lol)

[Bullet Sniper]

Mario runs faster if you keep the B button pressed on.

I remember spending quite a long time as a kid wondering how to pass one level in the first Mario on NES. More precisely one devilish long jump.

To never read the game manual is a bad habit i kept for most of my gaming "career", till of course they stopped making those things. (funnily enough i do read the pdf manuals sometimes now lol)

Well it seems despite being the father and original model for platformer games, Super Mario still holds the unique distinction of being able to accelerate your movement speed by holding down the B button.

I can't conceivably imagine finding any veteran gamer that has played a classic Super Mario game without holding down the B button once.

[BroHomo]

Throughout the whole 12 hour trip I would get distracted and focus on the sound/sight of vary birds. Convinced that the universe was telling me something I pondered on the meaning the bulk of the trip. While coming down I saw some birds and finally had to tell my friend. took 20 minutes tEllington her all of my bird encounters of the day. She looked at me and said....
"Sid, birds are everywhere, all the time"

Mind Blown

[The Negative Zone]

Just this weekend I realised the pun in the name of the film "Free Willy". Over here in England we were all to distracted by the word "willy" to notice the pun on "free will"

Add me for this one too. Just now. Dang.

[Scott Taylor]

In the Wii game Super Smash Brothers, a player with a nunchuk is going to beat a player without a nunchuk a good 90 percent of the time.

[Kyer]

Music lyrics.

I was an absolutely full grown-ass woman showing some gray hairs before I realized that "Loved me like a rock" meant sex. Before that I couldn't figure out what the heck the writer was talking about.

At the age of 14: chicken at dinner was part of an actual chicken.
I had bitten into a chicken leg during a large family get-together and my teeth came away with a strand of tendon and blood vessel. As I stared down at the strings I had that lighting bulb moment where I realized..... Nearly didn't make it to the bathroom fast enough. Became a vegetarian right then and there. To this day I don't get why it took me so long to realize...