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TheOtherDave comments on Rationality Quotes December 2013 - Less Wrong
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Things that we know that we don't know we know? I run into these all the time... last night, for example, I realized that I knew the English word for the little plastic cylinders at the end of a shoelace. (I discovered this when someone asked me what an 'aglet' was.) I'd had no idea.
An aglet... beautiful. I probably have a larger vocabulary in English than in Finnish by now. Lots of unknown knowns there I bet.
I cannot for the life of me remember why I know that word.
It's also a speed-boosting item in the video game Terraria. (I did not know the meaning of the word until now.)
It was a minor plot point in a Terry Pratchett novel. Could that be it?
I don't think I've ever read any Pratchett novels, but I might well have read a summary or discussion of the relevant one.
It was a pretty minor plot point, so that probably isn't it.
Yes but as soon as you thought of it it becomes a known known :)
True, much as unknown unknowns become known unknowns.
That said, I can infer from how often I come across them (converting them in the process) that there's a large store of them remaining unconverted.
I'm going to guess you have at one point watched this "Phineas and Ferb" episode, and then forgot it. There's a song and the chorus is "A-G-L-E-T don't forget it".
If that's how it happened, it's pretty amusing, because one of the running gags was that Candace kept going on about how there was absolutely no need for anyone to know the word aglet, and she became frustrated when it started catching on everywhere.
My brain has, in the intervening weeks, offered up a memory of learning the word "aglet" from a Reader's Digest vocabulary quiz in my childhood. That said, your explanation is much better than mind, despite being false, so I'm tempted to accept it as the official story of why I know the word "aglet".
On this site, I really ought to be downvoted for that sentiment, I suppose.