There’s nothing more satisfying than being right—but sadly, most opponents really don’t like confessing that they’re in the wrong. These 42 Redditors share the times when they were completely correct, only to have people take their sweet, sweet time admitting it.
1. Not Just a Simpsons’ Character
Teacher: "Who wrote The Iliad?" Me: "Homer" Class: "Hahah."
Wikimedia Commons, Pete unseth
2. Just Passing Through
My 9th-grade English teacher had us do an exercise on homonyms. Here was one of the sentences where we had to pick the correct word to use: "Jack and Jill walked ___ (passed or past) the gas station." Naturally, I put “past,” only to be marked wrong. I inquired about it, and my teacher was like, "No, Jeff. That's like the past, present, and future."
How this moron became an ENGLISH teacher, I have no idea.
3. Shoop, Shoop da Oops
I was the person who needed correcting. In grade 2, I explained to my entire class, as pretentiously as a 7-year-old could, that the singular of sheep is shoop. My logic was that the singular of geese is goose and that rule applied to sheep, too. I still remember the other kids looking at me like I was dropped on my head as a baby.
4. A Bloom of a Different Color
In senior kindergarten, I had an activity for Mother’s Day to color some pre-printed card with three tulips. The teacher told us to color them red, yellow, and orange. 6-year-old me colored one purple because I didn't like orange. My teacher told me I was wrong, and to redo it—for a ridiculous reason. She said "purple tulips don't exist."
I told my mom when I got home, and she cut the purple tulip out of our garden so I could take it to class the next day and prove my teacher wrong.
5. Blood-Red Righteousness
Eighth grade, entire class against me, saying blood is blue until it oxidizes and turns red. Our teacher came in and literally asked "Are you all stupid? Blood is red, inside and outside. Wanna see my colonoscopy video?"
6. An Unsentimental Journey
My mother-in-law is convinced that The Hobbit is a two-book series. I tried to enlighten her on this notion, including by showing her Wikipedia and copies of the book available on Amazon. She wouldn't have it. Eventually, the argument became heated and we had to "agree to disagree." I still bring it up sometimes to my wife because it bugs her.
7. How Suite It Is
I was working as a receptionist on summer break from college. One day, a woman with a tired mid-western, middle-aged voice called from a potential vendor’s office to ask for our mailing address. So I rattle off "60 West 26th Street, Suite 400..." She stops me and asks me to repeat, so I do. She stops me again and asks in this faux-puzzled way, "So that's S-W-E-E-T 400?
I reply with innocent earnestness, because I think somehow I have not been clear that it is suite: S-U-I-T-E. She responds with this incredulous yet delighted laugh that goes on for what seemed like 5 minutes. Her next words made my jaw drop. "Dear, you don't pronounce that "sweet!" she said like she was talking to a five-year-old, "it's pronounced "suit."
I think she must be joking or I still haven't made myself clear, so I actually say "Ha-ha, no, sorry I wasn't clear, it's suite (sweet), you know, like a suite (sweet) of offices?" Then she sighs wearily like she just can't believe what she has to deal with, and levels with me. "Look, I feel bad telling you this, but you are making a complete fool of yourself every time you say your office address.
She goes on. “I know you are going to be embarrassed, but when you get off the phone with me, go find a dictionary and have someone else explain to you how to pronounce suite (suit). It's probably not your fault, your parents probably had no schooling and you were badly educated so you don't know any better, but if you don't want to be fired, you'll do as I say for your own good."
She then proceeds to make me say the address again, insisting I pronounce suite as suit, not allowing me to continue if I don’t say it correctly. So I mutter my way through it and she finally gets off the phone after telling me that I would thank her one day. I just kept wishing she had inadvertently put the phone down wrong so it didn't disconnect.
That’s because I was pretty sure the next sentence out of her mouth to anyone within ears’ reach in her office would be, "My God, you wouldn't believe the fool I just spoke to. She kept telling me her office "sweet" number! I didn't know WHAT she was talking about, so I made her spell it for me because I wasn't previously aware a human being could be so stupid as to pronounce S-U-I-T-E as sweet, when anyone with half a brain cell knows it's pronounced SUIT! Why oh why do they give morons jobs?"
Only to have everyone go, "Uhhhhhh," wondering if they should be the one to break the news.
8. Continent Confidential
My mom. She had mental health problems and would express and insist on bizarre “truths” when she was ill. My boyfriend at the time came over. He said his parents were going to Hawaii. I said that I always wanted to visit an island in the Pacific. My mom then asked if I was stupid, because Hawaii is in AFRICA (she sounded the letters out extra-long for emphasis).
I just said I must have forgotten that and did my best not to laugh. My boyfriend, though, became indignant and, despite my frantically waving “no,” proceeded to try to correct her and say that I was right. That didn't go over very well. I spent the next half hour, in private, trying to explain to him what delusions are.
9. Pony up
My first week as a freshman in a college literature class, I referred to the peonies mentioned in a story and my classmate said, "It's pronounced 'ponies.'" I looked doubtful and said, "Really? Eh, I'm pretty sure it's just 'PEE-uh-neez.'" She went on a bit of a rant about how her grandmother grew them and she knew all about them. Turns out, not everybody at university is all that bright.
10. S-M-R-T
When I was in kindergarten, I told all the other kids that the word "dumb" was spelled D-U-M because in one of the Bugs Bunny/Wile E. Coyote cartoons, Bugs said "And 'mud' spelled backwards is 'dum'!" Oh, but that wasn't even the worst part. The teacher tried to correct me, but I was INSISTENT and eventually burst into tears because I had just seen the cartoon that weekend.
11. Let’s Call It Even
My little brother, then 8, read a neighborhood flyer about a pool party and pronounced "hors d'oeuvre" as "horse doover." My friend, a know-it-all (then 16) laughed in a really exaggerated way and said, "I can't believe you just pronounced "hors du voor" as "Horse doover."
12. More Than One Problem Here
I had a teacher once “correct” my spelling of wolves (plural noun) to wolfs. This was an English teacher. And the editor of the school paper, for which I was writing. She was the regular English teacher, while I was in AP, so I wasn't familiar enough with her to realize that she was a blithering idiot. It didn't take long for it to dawn on me, though.
13. The Great Unknown
My dad adamantly refused to believe that Narwhals were real. I had to show him not just photos, but video of narwhals before he finally believed me.
14. Those Who Can’t Do…
I had a really self-assured science teacher. Here are some highlights: She told us Harambe was shot for trying to eat the child. She told us gorillas were carnivores. When asked why, she said that “No animal that big can survive off of plants.” Lady, you taught us about dinosaurs. Oh, but that was just the beginning of the nightmare.
One of our substitute teachers had nicknames that she liked being called. One of them was “Wicked Witch of the West” because she was very nice and not witch-like at all. One day, our regular teacher told us which substitute we would have before she arrived, and one of the students said "Oh, the Wicked Witch!" That student got detention.
When the sub arrived, we all made a point to greet her as Wicked Witch. If that didn't shock the teacher, then the substitute's delight at us remembering her nickname from three years ago was show-stopping. This woman also told us that people in Florida didn't have basements. My aunt actually lived in Florida at the time, and had a basement.
A student asked how fast the Earth revolved. The teacher said flatly, "One year." The student rephrased his question, realizing what he was asking and what the teacher thought he had asked were different things. He then asked at how many miles per hour the Earth spun on its axis. "One year!" barked the teacher again.
Three or four different people tried to explain the question, and one got sent to the hall. This lady was in her mid-forties and was adamant that we were not allowed to fact-check her throughout any of this. A student got detention from googling the Harambe incident because she was supposedly “out of area” on her laptop.
15. A Hard Pill to Swallow
In 5th grade health class, I said that it wasn't true that gum takes 7 years to pass through your digestive system. My teacher then says that it is very dangerous to swallow gum because…in your stomach you have an organ "that mashes up your food," and when you swallow gum, it gets stuck to that organ. She then said that eventually, if you swallow too much gum, you will no longer be able to digest food.
Is it that hard to tell kids about stomach acid.....?
16. God Bless Us, Except This One
At my little sister’s confirmation. I was her sponsor. I was 18 and she was 14. The woman next to me got all nasty because I was nodding off, and said I should be ashamed and that I was being disrespectful. But she didn't know the awful truth. I had end-stage liver failure and was on a lot of pain meds that made me sleepy.
Afterwards, I told my mom about it (sponsors were seated separately from parents) and she was peeved. She cornered the woman in the bathroom and just ripped her a new one. The lady skulked out very quickly after that. Glad to say a year later I got my transplant and am now healthy and doing great. Turning 27 in 10 days!
17. Fact Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself
This was cringey and also infuriating. My grandmother has Alzheimer's. I was explaining it to a few people when this girl in my class butts in and states that first, Alzheimer's doesn't exist. Only dementia exists. Second, Alzheimer's is like crippling autism. It took all of my strength not to punch her into the next universe.
I felt incredibly insulted and was, understandably, furious. Everybody was shocked at how rude and misinformed the girl was.
18. Flat-out Lies
My husband and I were having a party at our house. I am a historian and have tons of old and unique things from around the world. A woman was looking at my collection of maps. I have a copy of the first map of the world, and she asked why the edge was wavy. I told her the map-maker knew the Earth was round and decided to make the edge wavy for accuracy.
"But the Earth is flat" says the lady. We are not friends anymore.
19. Pray for Her
I ran into our local vet and her very religious younger sister. As the vet and I talked, her sister looked out into the store parking lot and saw an older man staggering to his truck. The little sister said, very primly, "There but for the grace of God go I." I said, "Actually, he is a very well-respected man." She replied, "He is obviously drunk before noon."
My next words totally crushed her. “No,” I said, "He has MS. He's my father, and your sister's pastor." Big sister just looked embarrassed.
20. Spelling It out
Peer reviewing in high school, which is fine until you take a non-honors English course and other kids can't spell. I'm an English major, and I wanted to be at the time, so you better believe I had a solid grasp on spelling and grammar. I can understand minor uninformed corrections, but this one just made me angry.
I believe the sentence I wrote was something along the lines of "he was definitely lying." It was corrected to "he is lieing," with a question mark by "definitely" that pointed to a note on the side that said "Not a word? Did you mean 'defiantly?'" I swear I've never been angrier in my life. What was this kid thinking?
21. Get Your Eyes Checked
In 5th grade, a girl kept telling people that my glasses were fake because "They had plastic frames and real glasses only come in metal frames."
22. Thank You, No
I was talking to this girl at my school who was very proud to be Italian (meaning her ancestors were, she wasn't). She was very excited to meet me because I am an international student from Rome. She asked me to speak Italian, and as she said so, my mom called from Rome. I answered and we started speaking.
At the end of the phone call, my mom said "Have a great day" (in Italian) and I answered “Grazie!” As I hung up the phone, this girl embarrassed herself in the worst way possible. She started correcting my pronunciation of grazie, saying that you're supposed to say "grazi." NEVER LAUGHED SO MUCH. Thanks, dumb English girl.
23. The Nuclear Option
My ex-girlfriend once told me not to use the microwave to re-heat some food because it was radioactive. I didn't even bother trying to explain to her that this wasn't how the microwave worked, but I did get a pretty big feeling of "maybe this relationship wasn't such a good idea."
24. Foreign Affairs
I was a UK student at an American college and was quite arrogant back in those days. A professor of mine was talking about Northern Ireland and how it was part of the UK. Without thinking, I raised my hand and smugly corrected him, saying that the Republic of Ireland was in the UK, not Northern Ireland.
He then typed it into Google in front of the whole class, exposing my ignorance on the matter, and said, "Sometimes students come to university to learn, not to teach." That one really taught me a lesson.
25. Lost in Translation
My Hispanic friend's mom was at the grocery store and struck up a conversation in line with a lady from Texas. It started out fine, and then they started talking about their kids. This is where it got ridiculous. My friend's mom told the lady that her daughter played the viola. The Texas lady stopped and said, "Oh honey, in this country it's called the violin."
26. Sour Grapes
In kindergarten, I drew a picture of grapes and colored them green. Then, the other kids AND the teacher were saying there are no green grapes, only purple.
27. This Guy Doesn’t Have My Vote
It was the first meeting of the year at a major finance club at my university. Huge deal. Auditorium was packed. Being a keener and wanting to contribute, during the summer end market update I put up my hand to chat about the election in Hong Kong and how a lot of pro-democracy candidates got seats and it could lead to instability.
My friend behind me says: "Hi, I'm from Hong Kong. This guy is wrong, there was no election. No idea what he is talking about." The entire room laughs at me for like 10 seconds before we move on. Except I was right, there was an election. Screw you Austin. You're my boy, but darn that was embarrassing.
28. Religious Unity
My ex corrected me when I mentioned that Catholics are Christians. She laughed and said I had a "blonde moment" for thinking that, because obviously they are two separate religions. Silly old me!
29. Off by an Inch
My mother, who has a Masters degree and is an oncologist, claims “Centimeter” is pronounced "Contometer," no matter how many times I tell her.
30. Why You Spineless, Yellow-bellied…
In second grade, I joined the robotics club. One day, we were learning about how an animal’s bones affect the way animals move, and the teacher said, “Give me examples about animals with spines.” I said snakes. Her response stunned me. She replied that actually I was wrong, and that snakes are like worms and lack spines. Uh....
31. Cruel Irony
When I was in school, I once used the word "fallacious" while giving a presentation about something. The entire class laughed at me, and when I insisted that that was a real word, the teacher said something to the effect of "Not unless you were trying to refer to male private junk." Cue more laughter from my class.
Obviously in adult retrospect, the teacher was mistakenly thinking of the word "phallus." As it happens, fallacious is a freaking word. It means, ironically, to be wrong about something. I will never stop being angry about this memory.
32. Together, We Can Change History
Grade 7 in Canada, we were learning about medieval Japan in Social Studies class, which is basically history class. I made a comment that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and a kid said it was the Germans and some people backed him up. The teacher, meanwhile, said she forgot who attacked Pearl Harbor, but it wasn't the Japanese. If only smart phones existed back then.
33. Birds of a Feather Fail Together
A teacher in biology class was discussing a food pyramid of a river habitat, and she claimed that "10 Sprey" were at the top of the food chain. I pointed out, "Miss, I think that says '1 Osprey.'" She snarled and said "Fine. Everyone, this guy thinks he knows better than me, so now it's 1 Sprey." The whole class groaned.
Everyone was muttering because they had to cross out what they'd written and rewrite it, and people at my table were giving me evil eyes and telling me to be quiet.
34. Pardon My French
My entire class didn't believe me, the teacher included, when I said that a third of the English language comes from Normandic French. Another time, I said the word “Bluetooth” comes from a King of Denmark also called Bluetooth, and they all just laughed at me. Screw them, they have no idea what they’re talking about. I was right all along.
35. Gallows Humor
When my grandmother fell over last month, she was told at her age that having her hip broken this badly would require surgery. My whole family was in the room, and my mother said, "She can't have surgery, she'll die!" Without really thinking, I instantly said something horrific. "Better off early than stretching it out." My grandma laughed....Nobody else did.
36. Wrong Finds a Way
Once in middle school, the teacher said that carnivore dinosaurs like the T-Rex appeared in the Jurassic era. I said that the T-Rex was actually from the Cretaceous Period. The teacher and some of the students said that I was wrong because "It's called Jurassic Park.” Yeah really, they thought it was fine to get their facts from movies.
The next day, I brought some sources from the Internet that agreed with me, and the teacher corrected herself after doing some quick searches on her own. None of that stopped me from getting nicknamed "dinosaur" in class.
37. You’re out!
My class was playing baseball, and I was chosen to be the pitcher. Now, I can’t throw very well, but I managed to strike out three people in the first inning. Which I thought was pretty good considering we were losing. Well, my friends thought otherwise, and told me I was “cheating.” They got the teacher involved, and I was banned from pitching for the rest of the match.
38. The Sweet Taste of Victory
One time I asked my mom if there was any fruit in the fridge, but after opening it I changed my mind and took a bar of chocolate out to eat. My mom said "Oh, is chocolate a fruit? Does it grow on trees?" I had the best comeback. I just smiled and said, "Yes, on the cocoa trees." She couldn't think of anything to say after.
39. A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Lies
I had a girlfriend who once accused me of being at the pub when I was just in my bedroom playing Civ 5. She wasn't at the pub herself but her friends were, and she got them to take a picture of “me,” send it to her, and confirm it was me…That's right, she couldn't even tell it wasn't me. Obviously I fought back, but her and her friends had "photographic evidence."
40. You Can’t Go Home
I worked at a summer camp where we were responsible for transporting the campers to the airport if they were flying home. Our camp was a half hour away from the airport, so common sense would say that we leave about two and a half hours before flights take off, especially because these campers are flying as unaccompanied minors, so they have to be checked in AT LEAST a half hour before the flight takes off.
Our original bus schedule had people leaving an hour and a half before their scheduled flight, so best case, they get to the airport an hour before their flight, which is not ideal. I pointed this out to my boss two days beforehand, and I was essentially sat down and told why I didn’t need to worry and that it would be fine.
This turned out horrifically. Guess who missed their flights when the bus driver got lost for about ten minutes?
41. Nice Try, Buddy
This guy told me that he went to Nice for a holiday, and I replied that the south of France is a beautiful place. The guy just laughs and tells me Nice is in Italy, but it's an easy mistake to make. I'm too shocked to respond, like I seriously don’t understand to this day how he could have gone on holiday and not known the country he was in.
42. Let’s Call a Square a Square
About a year into our marriage, my wife and I bought a dining table and chairs. It was our first “real” furniture! My wife was so happy, she posted pictures on Facebook and wanted her mom to look. Well, her mom commented on the phone that it was a nice “oval table.” Wife is immediately upset. "You didn't look," she says. "Yes I did!" her mom insists.
"It's not oval, it's rectangular." "No, it's an oval, I looked." Wife finally gets her mom to actually go look for real, and then it gets even worse. She drops this gem: "Well that's what I call it!" “Um, you call rectangles ovals?" This has become a running gag for us. Whenever we lose an argument, we always end it with, "Well, that's what I call it!"
Sources: Reddit,
