Shh! The trick is to not make a billboard of one’s ignorance. I don’t publicize the times I think of Chicago as though it were a state by itself, or as if Illinois was a city within Chicago. Think about it, how often do you hear about Chicago, now compare that to how often you hear specifically about Illinois, not that often, correct?
I sometimes joke that I was born WAY back when we only had 48 states in the union (1956)! I can almost recall the earth still cooling during my first years.
When my kids asked if the dinosaurs were really all that big, I told them that they were really huge - worse yet, before we invented fire, we had to eat our dinosaur meat raw.