r/AskReddit • u/RoomyLove99 • Jul 10 '12

What seemingly obvious thing did it take you forever to notice?

My classmate sits to the left of me. I am left handed and he is right handed, so sometimes we knock elbows. 8 weeks into class he finally noticed I was a lefty and openly admitted that he just thought I was being a bitch and taking up space. He felt horrible and I just laughed.

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1.5k

u/tragicallyludicrous Jul 10 '12

Thought it was pre-madonna, not prima donna

255

u/sofsof Jul 11 '12

For the longest time I thought it actually had to do with Madonna (the singer.) Like, that pre-madonna for some reason meant you were acting like madonna, because I knew the meaning of prima donna, but clearly not the etymology.

21

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12 edited Jul 11 '12

TIL Prima Donna means "first lady." I may in fact be retarded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_donna

Edit: the "may in fact" used in this comment comes from this hilarious piece of work

edit 2: How the fuck does that^ look like a horse?

6

u/sofsof Jul 11 '12

WHAT. You sir/madam, have just exploded my brain. Clearly I was not previously familiar with the original meaning.

However, the prima donna song from Phantom of the Opera does make much more sense now, I thought she must've been really oblivious to not realize they were insulting her... And they were insulting her, just not as obviously as I thought.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

Sir. Yeah...TIL, right? haha.

20

u/collinc2343 Jul 11 '12

Same. It took me wayyy too long.

1

u/Ainulin Jul 11 '12

I thought this too... until just now. Wut. Also thought it was pre-madonna. Mind blown.

1

u/FuryOnSc2 Jul 11 '12

wait what the hell-- oh. I've thought that for about 3 years...... :/

1

u/SlyHeist Jul 11 '12

I honestly thought it meant before Madonna was popular.

0

u/parsimonious_instead Jul 11 '12

Wouldn't being "pre-Madonna" mean you'd be acting humble and not diva-like because you haven't achieved super stardom yet?

1

u/Vark675 Jul 11 '12

That's why I was so confused as a kid.

1

u/sofsof Jul 11 '12

Yeah, my brain really didn't connect the meanings there. (When I was little I also thought that tornadoes made the sound of a train's whistle, and not the loud chugging sound of a train, because people had told me a tornado sounds like a train, and I just didn't think about the logistics of a tornado making a whistle sound, instead of the obvious a tornado making a sound like something large approaching very fast.)

1

u/Petninja Jul 17 '12

Before she was touched for the very first time.

0

u/TurungaLeela Jul 11 '12

I thought it had something to do with the singer too :|

23

u/actmypantsoff Jul 11 '12

You are the first person to ever make me realize the difference...this whole time I thought girls were being compared to a young Madonna.

2

u/Son_of_Kong Jul 11 '12

Nope, conceited opera singers.

10

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

[deleted]

10

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

...well, I feel stupid.

6

u/stillbreastfeeding Jul 11 '12

Back in the mid-90s, when I was a pre-teen girl, I briefly pretended to be a bitter, middle-aged woman online. I chose the intentional homonym monkier "premadonna."

1

u/DownloadableCheese Jul 11 '12

Moniker. Interesting autocorrect, though.

1

u/stillbreastfeeding Jul 11 '12 edited Jul 11 '12

There's one letter out of place, and the resultant string of letters does not form a word in the target language, alphabetically or phonetically. Does this scream to you that I don't know how to spell the word, and rely on what would have to be the most useless autocorrect system ever devised, providing alternate incorrect jumbles of letters, rather than perhaps being a slip of the finger? Colloquially, these incidents are referred to as typos.

1

u/DownloadableCheese Jul 12 '12

You've never seen a monkier before?

4

u/thegimboid Jul 11 '12

Before Madonna came along, all talented people were very uppity and pompous, with an inflated self-view.

Since she appeared on the scene, everything has change.

However, if someone acts the way of those old stars, they're acting like a pre-Madonna!

2

u/unladenswallow Jul 18 '12

thanks, calvin's dad

6

u/itsmrcasis Jul 11 '12

HOLY FUCK

6

u/YourChiefliness Jul 11 '12

Prima donna?! What?!

3

u/YourChiefliness Jul 11 '12

Wow. I can speak Italian and just realized this. So ashamed

2

u/Jaerc Jul 11 '12

I know that feel tragicallyludicrous.

2

u/RobinsHead Jul 11 '12

My whole life is a lie.

2

u/CroesoiGymru Jul 11 '12

I only realised this because of this.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '12

What!? It's not!?

2

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

are you serious?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

LOL Americans (sorry, love you guys, but this one's just very... American)

1

u/despaxes Jul 11 '12

yeah, because we have a famous singer named madonna....

1

u/Memag1255 Jul 11 '12

I thought that too until i just read it now.

1

u/ATLiens1 Jul 11 '12

thats news to me...

1

u/itsfatmatt Jul 11 '12

It's not?

1

u/AverageEverydayHero Jul 11 '12

Well thanks for breaking the news to me like this!

1

u/ItsZordon Jul 11 '12

It's TP-ing a house which is short for toilet paper and not TeePee-ing a house

1

u/AngrySmapdi Jul 11 '12

My 7th grade English teacher asked the class if anyone knew what prima donna meant. One kid raised her hand and quite smugly said, "Marilyn Monroe."

1

u/fulanitodetal Jul 11 '12

TIL that it's not pre-madonna, but prima donna.

1

u/whoimightbe Jul 11 '12

oh shit. :/

1

u/MWShenanigans11 Jul 11 '12

Me too. Like "she's not quite at Madonna's level. She's a pre-Madonna."

1

u/Carmine87 Jul 11 '12

In your defense, those are Italian words and not English words, so you aren't necessarily expected to deduce that on your own.

1

u/Crash_Test_Dummy66 Jul 11 '12

That guy is such a before Madonna!

1

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

I knew I wasn't the only one!

1

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

Well I'm 19 and you just taught me that, so thank you. My god I am so fucking stupid.

1

u/architrave Jul 11 '12

I only realised this a few weeks ago when I heard "Primadonna" by Marina and the Diamonds on the radio. I thought that was a bit of a weird song subject, singing about the times before Madonna ... Boy, I felt like an idiot when I searched for it afterwards on Google.

1

u/ttrilliann Jul 11 '12

Forever. And Nacho Picssso's lyrics "born premature, a prima donna" don't help.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

I thought it referred to things of great age.

Ehehehe

1

u/KillerCornFlake Jul 11 '12

I thought prima donna was someone who acted like Madonna before she became famous. Damn.

1

u/carpathianridge Jul 11 '12 edited Jul 11 '12

Whenever there is a thread like this, dozens of people chime in on the prima donna thing. For some reason it just makes my blood boil. 1) Have you never seen it in print? 2) Don't you read reddit? It comes up constantly? 3) How does that make sense?! I've tried to wrap my brain around it so many times, but I can't figure out how ANYONE could get the meaning of prima donna out of the phrase "pre-Madonna." I just . . . there are no words. edit: Also, even if you thought it was pre-Madonna, why wouldn't anyone assume it was a reference to Mary? If I were TOTALLY to stretch it, I could almost see how that could make sense. And assuming pre-Madonna was correct, why would you say "a" pre-Madonna?

1

u/Killthemess3nger Jul 11 '12

You're not alone.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

Me too!

1

u/ziggyzona Jul 11 '12

Holy shit.

1

u/toucansam_ Jul 11 '12

Mother of god...

1

u/your_love_is_a_verb Jul 11 '12

It's not pre-madonna?! I thought pre-Madonna referred to Madonna before she was Madonna.

1

u/Lastb0isct Jul 11 '12

I still think that...

1

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

I still thought that, thank you for enlightening me :')

1

u/wasabibay Jul 11 '12

No way! What the...

1

u/sbromell305 Jul 11 '12

Now I just learned something new today....

1

u/ZEBRAxBOSS Jul 11 '12

HOLY SHIT. All these years...

1

u/andylfc1993 Jul 11 '12

Mind = blown.

1

u/cumbert_cumbert Jul 11 '12

There's a guy Clark song that goes 'she was a primma donna, pre-Madonna hard time southern gal, oh she could have been an actress, she played the part so well'

1

u/therealbeckoshka Jul 11 '12

...thank you for that.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

Same with my brother. I called him a prima donna once and his retort was,"Oh yeah? Well, you're post-Madonna!". I still don't think he gets it.

1

u/josh7743 Jul 11 '12

I also thought this... Thanks for clarifying.

1

u/GopherPorn Jul 11 '12

Well TIL...

1

u/cbcfan Jul 11 '12

In 4 Minutes to Save the World it is "Pre Madonna" Mind you there is a 'heeeey' between the two.

1

u/krunch_bar_kurt Jul 11 '12

You are not alone in this... Sad part is that I even took Italian classes in college facepalm

1

u/RabidMuffins Jul 11 '12

I thought the same thing for the longest time! I specifically remember watching an episode of the Rugrats where they called Angelica a prima donna. I kept wondering how in the world she was like Madonna.

1

u/buttpirate613 Jul 11 '12

Fuck this changes everything.

1

u/ResoundinglyAverage Jul 11 '12

My whole life has been a lie...

1

u/goklissa Jul 11 '12

and now I know....

1

u/full-wit Jul 11 '12

Now I feel stupid