Have you ever found out that you’ve been objectively wrong about something you thought you understood… long after the fact?

A number of years ago, I recorded and distributed a training to my team. In this training, I referred to a specific screenshot as “the money shot.” I was 1000% ignorant to the pornographic implications of this phrase until a teammate texted me “omg. did you say you sent this to the whole global team??”

I also spent a fair amount of time telling people I had gotten “shanked” in high school. Shanked, in fact, before 2nd hour Spanish class even began. As it turns out, most people hear “shanked” and think someone attacked me with some kind of homemade shiv, whereas what I meant was “pantsed” because I was wearing my swim team’s sweatpants for meet day that made me an easy target.

Suffice it to say, there have been enough of these types of revelations that it has made me humble to the fact that many of us walk around assuming we understand things, only to find out we genuinely do not.

5 more moments of revelation from this past year:

1. Eggnog is traditionally an alcoholic beverage. I always heard those “so-and-so must’ve had too much eggnog at the holiday party!” comments and thought… ugh, yes; it’s such a rich drink.
2. “Para bailar la Bamba.” For the many years singing this song’s timeless hook, I sang it as “baila baila baila bamba.”
3. You can adjust your seat belt height. You should’ve seen my face when my (short in stature) cousin casually shifted her seat belt height.
4. This symbol: ^. I long thought it was called a “carrot,” and in my head it was something related to the shape of a carrot emerging from the dirt (?). Turns out it’s a “caret.” For as long as I ever referred to this symbol verbally, no one would’ve known the difference.
5. The “em dash” vs “en dash” vs “hyphen.” As a profligate user of the em dash, I’m glad I actually have an explanation for this writing tool I’ve otherwise evidently just stumbled into.

A lesson in humility. You never know when you don’t know what you think you know.