Ever encountered something that, in hindsight, should have been obvious and yet you never realised it until later? Maybe it was some random mention somewhere that that suddenly caused a revelation or maybe you just found an explanation and realised you've been missing it all this time.
Here is some of what I had:
nVidia
It's literally what caused me to create this thread as I found out mere minutes ago. I never once really thought about the name. Until I found that "envy" in Latin is "invidia". Suddenly it clicked into place - that is what they meant. If you spell that word funky, you get "nVidia" and the "N" is lowercase, so you know to pronounce it as "en" and then "vidia". Even their logo is a green eye which is associated with envy.
Why they chose that as their company name, I don't know but now I know that they did.
Nero
I'm referencing the software that can write disks on Windows. I actually found this quite some time ago and yet it still took me years before I noticed. So, the full name of the software is "Nero burning ROM", which I found to be a completely straight description of it - its name is Nero, it is used for "burning" (writing to disks) and you do it on ROMs (read only media - in this case, disks). The icon even looks like a disk that is on fire for, you know the "burning disks/ROMs" thing.
Until I saw larger version of it[footnote]If I recall correctly, it was when I just saw it in Windows Vista which just made all icons really giant by default[/footnote]
You can't really tell that well in an icon that's 16 by 16 pixel image but when it's biggert you can see it's not a disk it's the Coliseum. When I saw that, I immediately realised the name of the software is a reference that completely flew by me - "Nero burning Rome". "Nero" being an emperor of Rome who is infamous in history for burning the city of Rome [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Rome].
Eminem
This one took me more well over a decade. I finally understood his pseudonym last year and it was a really sudden revelation. I can't even remember what triggered it but I remember being on the bus at the time and just being bored, so my thoughts were drifting. At any rate, his real name is Marshal Mathers. So his initials are "M and M"
Just to be clear, I don't think he's named after the sweet[footnote]though he might be. I haven't really checked it, to be honest, but I doubt it[/footnote] - it is, however, a very popular thing that is pronounced the same and it should have tipped me off way earlier. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why I hadn't realised this for so long.
Loopholes
Probably not something I would have really figured out by myself. Also, not really that shocking but I found it an interesting piece of knowledge: the idiomatic phrase "find the loophole" refers to finding some way of bypassing a rule or a law of some description. The phrase actually has historical backing. These things are loopholes:
You can find them in castle walls, they are also called "arrowslits" because archers shot through them when defending from the inside. So, if you were attacking and shot at the walls, "finding the loophole" would be very beneficial to you as you get to take out one of the men inside, also, it'd be something that's really hard to do.
Heard this when I was watching Graham and Paul (from LoadingReadyRun) Let's Playing Cursed Crusade [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL81DE86E636F5B9BB]. They were joined by Brad who was actually doing PhD in history at a time, so there were some other interesting insights.
Here is some of what I had:
nVidia
It's literally what caused me to create this thread as I found out mere minutes ago. I never once really thought about the name. Until I found that "envy" in Latin is "invidia". Suddenly it clicked into place - that is what they meant. If you spell that word funky, you get "nVidia" and the "N" is lowercase, so you know to pronounce it as "en" and then "vidia". Even their logo is a green eye which is associated with envy.
Why they chose that as their company name, I don't know but now I know that they did.
Nero
I'm referencing the software that can write disks on Windows. I actually found this quite some time ago and yet it still took me years before I noticed. So, the full name of the software is "Nero burning ROM", which I found to be a completely straight description of it - its name is Nero, it is used for "burning" (writing to disks) and you do it on ROMs (read only media - in this case, disks). The icon even looks like a disk that is on fire for, you know the "burning disks/ROMs" thing.
Until I saw larger version of it[footnote]If I recall correctly, it was when I just saw it in Windows Vista which just made all icons really giant by default[/footnote]
You can't really tell that well in an icon that's 16 by 16 pixel image but when it's biggert you can see it's not a disk it's the Coliseum. When I saw that, I immediately realised the name of the software is a reference that completely flew by me - "Nero burning Rome". "Nero" being an emperor of Rome who is infamous in history for burning the city of Rome [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Rome].
Eminem
This one took me more well over a decade. I finally understood his pseudonym last year and it was a really sudden revelation. I can't even remember what triggered it but I remember being on the bus at the time and just being bored, so my thoughts were drifting. At any rate, his real name is Marshal Mathers. So his initials are "M and M"
Just to be clear, I don't think he's named after the sweet[footnote]though he might be. I haven't really checked it, to be honest, but I doubt it[/footnote] - it is, however, a very popular thing that is pronounced the same and it should have tipped me off way earlier. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why I hadn't realised this for so long.
Loopholes
Probably not something I would have really figured out by myself. Also, not really that shocking but I found it an interesting piece of knowledge: the idiomatic phrase "find the loophole" refers to finding some way of bypassing a rule or a law of some description. The phrase actually has historical backing. These things are loopholes:
You can find them in castle walls, they are also called "arrowslits" because archers shot through them when defending from the inside. So, if you were attacking and shot at the walls, "finding the loophole" would be very beneficial to you as you get to take out one of the men inside, also, it'd be something that's really hard to do.
Heard this when I was watching Graham and Paul (from LoadingReadyRun) Let's Playing Cursed Crusade [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL81DE86E636F5B9BB]. They were joined by Brad who was actually doing PhD in history at a time, so there were some other interesting insights.