Your understanding is based on cobbled together scraps of information from an article you read once, a story you overhead, or headlines scanned from your Twitter feed.

It’s such a common phenomenon the producers at This American Life even made up a name for it: Modern Jackass, a fictional magazine where you read the opinions you’re so loudly professing.

With that in mind, we’ve put together a list of our favourite misunderstandings and tried to explain them once and for all. Take a look at some of the best:

GLUTEN — It’s public enemy number one at the moment with every second person cutting out gluten in a bid to be healthier, lose weight or because they are ‘intolerant’. The much misunderstood protein is actually a combination of two proteins found in wheat, barley and rye. It’s defined as the “rubbery mass that remains when wheat dough is washed” by Food Standards Australian and New Zealand and is responsible for giving bread its delicious chewy quality.

It’s kryptonite for those who have coeliac disease, estimated to be around 1 in 70 according to Coeliac Australia. The disease is a lifelong auto-immune condition of the small intestine, where the immune system attacks itself when gluten is eaten. Those with gluten intolerance also have a negative reaction from gluten, although it’s unclear if the immune system is involved, according to The Conversation.

MSG — Monosodium glutamate is a concentrated salt added to foods to enhance the flavour. While glutamates naturally occur in lots of foods, this concentrated, processed version is created through fermentation and can be used as a flavouring for chips, sauces, processed meats, soups and some Asian foods. It’s regarded as safe by Food Standards ANZ but can lead to symptoms like headaches, tingling, and muscle tightness if a lot is eaten in one sitting.

IPA - India Pale Ale is the hipster beer du jour, but while you might be quaffing it by the pint, few people understand what the fancy acronym means. The style is over 175 years old according to IPA beer and comes in three styles: American, English and Double or Imperial. It’s said to have a hoppy flavour which is medium to intense in the American style, medium in the English version and more intense in the Imperial or Double style.

OFFSIDE (soccer) — It’s an often misunderstood rule that means very basically an attacking player cannot be in front of the last defender (not including the goal keeper) when a ball is passed to them. Think of it like this: if it wasn’t for the off-side rule, an attacking player could just park himself right up the field near the goal and wait for a long pass to come to them, but the off-side rule ensures they need to be behind the last defender.

TURTLE AND TORTOISE — This sparked a debate across our office the other day so let it be known: The main difference between the two is that tortoises are land dwellers with heavier, dome-shaped shells and feet, while turtles live in the water with smooth lightweight shells and feet more like flippers. Similarly dolphins and porpoises differ due to their shape. Dolphins have longer snouts and bigger mouths than porpoises, according to the World Wildlife Organisation.

INTEREST RATES — The first Tuesday of every month everyone with a mortgage stops at 2:30 to find out what the Reserve Bank is doing with ‘interest rates’. What we actually want to know is whether the official cash rate has changed — the rate at which commercial banks can borrow from the central bank. It’s currently 2.5 per cent but changes here can impact the rate at which consumers borrow from banks.

REVENUE AND PROFIT — Revenue is the amount coming in to a business. Profit is what is left after expenses have been paid.

NEGATIVE GEARING — This property buzzword can be confusing but is actually pretty simple. Gearing basically means borrowing to buy an asset, so negative gearing is when you pay more interest than you make in income. Neutral gearing is breaking even and positive gearing is when you’re making money.

Despite the fact you’re losing money, negative gearing can still be desirable as you can still make a profit on an asset through capital growth (for example if house prices rise) and your short-term losses can be used to reduce your tax burden.

BOKO HARAM — A militant Nigerian group who want to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state run by sharia. The name roughly translates to “Western education is a sin.” Read more about them here.

THE GOP — Short for the Grand Old Party and used to refer to the US Republican party.

THE CLOUD — The word used to describe the place ‘up there’ where contacts, pictures, information and emails can be stored so they can be accessed from anywhere without carrying around a USB stick. Still confused? Read more here.

HTML — HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language and it’s used to create websites. What you see on every webpage has been written in the background in this simple programming language (rather than complex code) and it makes sites look fancy rather than just plain text on a screen. Using HTML you can insert pictures, change the way text looks and arrange content on a web page.

NBN — Is short for National Broadband Network, a multi-billion dollar scheme to give everyone better and faster internet by upgrading phone lines, that was started under Labor. It’s being run by NBN Co, a commonwealth-owned company tasked with designing, building and operating the network and was expected to lead to job opportunities and economic growth.

However it’s been slammed for delays and cost blowouts, with an independent audit released this week saying the $43 billion second stage was “rushed, chaotic and inadequate” given just 11 weeks of consideration by the previous Labor government. Now Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull is working to overhaul the project, which he described as a “ramshackle, reckless excursion”.

NUMBER OF PLANETS — If you were born in the 1980s chances are you grew up with nine planets which you remembered by rattling off a phrase like: “My very elegant mother just sat upon nine porcupines”. But in 2005 the discovery of dwarf planet Eris sparked debate over exactly what did constitute a planet, and poor old Pluto got downgraded to dwarf. Now there are eight planets with a new rhyme: My very excellent mother just served us noodles.

What’s the simple thing you get tripped up on? Continue the conversation on Twitter @NewscomauHQ | @Victoria_Craw