Flotsam and Jetsam

There's so much stuff I don't know it's embarrassing. I even just spelled embarrassing wrong as I typed it.

Let's take "Flotsam and Jetsam". I've heard it before. Never really knew what it meant.

They are words used to describe goods that have been thrown into the ocean. Jetsam is stuff voluntarily cast into the sea, usually in order to lighten a vessel in an emergency. Flotsam describes goods floating in the water that were NOT put there deliberately, often after a shipwreck or accident.

I never would have guessed that's what those words meant. I thought Flotsam and Jetsam were possibly an old vaudeville act. I always mentally grouped them with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Amos and Andy, Flotsam and Jetsam....

An honest mistake for a 30 something imbecile.