Just recently I was in a conversation with a number of UK mainlanders and we had a debate over what “tories” meant, apparently disproportionately ordinarily it refers to a political party and it’s not usual to use it as short for “territories” as I’ve used it (according to how the debate ended, it was half and half between them). And once again I’m reminded of how people feel to look back at their usage of a word/phrase over the years and cringe.

More tragically, me and a friend were embarrassed once upon realizing everyone was confusing “encephalitis” with “hydrocephalus” when talking to someone about their kid with hydrocephalus. Awkward because encephalitis is caused by HIV.

      • agitatedpotato@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        What got me was the Pokemon sudowoodo and having heard the word pseudo in some kind of media and figuring out what it meant but not how it was spelled. It’s name is probably a nod to superuser do, but that’s not how I first encountered it as a kid.

        • Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Sudowoodo males sense if the word is meant to be psuedo. Pseudo wood o, Like fake tree. I always thought it was a pretty clever name. I dont know how it works in relation to superuser do

          • pixelscript@lemmy.ml
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            6 months ago

            Pokemon names nearly always deviate from the spellings of their constituent root words in at least one superficial way.

            There are a couple odd exceptions like Electrode and Talonflame, of course. And even more now with paradox mons, but those are, uh, a special case.

            My point being, I am confident the “sudo” in “Sudowoodo” is not a nod to sudo at all, it’s just a coincidental side effect of corrupting “pseudo”. As they do.

            I suppose if one really wanted to know, one could just ask Nob Ogasawara himself, the one who named Sudowoodo. He’s on Twitter…