It does not appear to me that skybrian is first learning about currying and partial application, and I'm not first learning about currying or partial application in this thread either.

Your play at humility that you didn't understand currying and partial application in the past kinda falls flat if you then go on to less-humbly assume that everyone else in the conversation is stuck where you once were.

You seem to be reacting to your own assumption that the original response was making an assumption.

I understood it instead to be generalizing to a related concept, and inferred no condescension, FWIW.