A person can ask a basic question after years of working around the answer.

Not knowing something basic gets more embarrassing the longer it goes unasked, so the workaround hardens and the question becomes unspeakable. The gap in knowledge is usually small. The years of quiet effort spent routing around it are not, and nobody else can see that cost.

Name one thing you have been navigating around and ask about it this week, plainly, without the apology in front. Most people answer in a sentence and never register that it was difficult to ask.