People have been sharing the obvious things they didn’t realise until far too late – 25 hilariously belated revelations

People have been sharing the things they did not grasp until way too late in life after Reddit user HearThePeopleSing posed this question:

‘My father didn’t realise that Eeyore was called Eeyore because he was a donkey until he was well into his thirties. What have you not realised until it’s embarrassingly late?’

And there was no shortage of painfully slow-on-the-uptake replies. Here are some that will make you feel like an exceptionally perceptive and intelligent person.

1.

‘About five years ago, I found out that local anaesthetic was NOT in fact, anaesthetic that had been made locally. I thought general was just the default NHS anaesthetic.

‘People seemed happy they were having local over general, and I reasoned it was because it was better for you, like local honey.’
-Violet_Daydreams

2.

‘That Jason Status is actually a music duo called Chase & Status.’
-banwe11

3.

‘My answer every time this question comes up: you can’t drive through the Channel Tunnel, you drive onto a big train and it drives you through.’
-TheDuraMaters

4.

‘Was on a speed awareness course about a month ago and discovered if you were running 30 minutes late for something, you would have to drive at about 190mph I think it was, to make up for that time. And that it basically isn’t worth speeding if you are running late.’
-Jlaw118

5.

‘That Ark-un-saw and Ar-kansas (as I thought) were the same place. Must’ve been about 43 when I realised.’
-surreyade

6.

‘I didn’t realise that ‘broiler’ is American for grill. It’s a bit embarrassing how long I thought there was an entire other cooking method out there that the UK just doesn’t use.’
-pollosgm

7.

‘The rapper Flo Rida I got quite quickly but will.i.am took me an embarrassingly long time.’
-snowmanseeker

8.

‘I thought Montessori was a childhood illness and that children went to Montessori school as it had the support needed for the kids.

‘When I was 18, a schoolfriend told me she went to one of the schools. I asked her ‘Did, did you get better?’. She was very confused until I explained what I thought it meant.’
-Cuclean

9.

‘It took me months to realise that my in-person classmate Neeve was the same person as my online classmate Niamh. Months.’
-katie-kaboom

10.

‘That hyperbole is not pronounced ‘hyper-bowl’ at age 30. I also found out last year (after using it in a presentation) that dichotomy is not pronounced ‘dish-otomy.’Hy-per-bo-lee and die-cotomy for anyone like me.’
-jesuseatsbees

11.

‘I didn’t know narwhals were real until I was 25. Thought they were mythical like unicorns.’
-herbert_timetraveler

12.

‘At one point as a child I’d heard something about the Elgin Marbles – but (and this is key) it must have been on the radio or if it was TV no actual footage of them was shown.

‘It was only last year that I realised that it was indeed things made of marble that are often very large and not, as my child brain thought the tiny glass spheres you play with.

‘I was always so confused at the argument it would be incredibly expensive to give them back, because well surely it wouldn’t be that hard?’
-Fluid_Canary4768