Let's spice things up with some real-world analogies and some groovy fun facts!

Imagine the ethanoate ion, CH₃COO–, as a pizza. Now, ethanoic acid (which kinda sounds like a pizza sauce, doesn’t it?) can lose a topping, let's say a piece of pineapple (which represents the hydrogen ion). When that pineapple falls off, our pizza (the ethanoate ion) has a different taste. Similarly, the carbon-oxygen bond lengths and bond orders change, settling down at 1.5 each.

The electron buddies in the double bond don't like staying in one place - they're the wanderlust types! So they go on an adventure, traveling (or delocalizing) across the two carbon-oxygen domains. 

In the world of ethanoic acid, CH₃COOH, the carbon and oxygen decide to mix things up and go for an sp² hybridized look. Think of hybridization as the trendiest fashion at the molecule party!

For the oxygen in –OH, imagine it wearing an sp3 hybridized outfit, which is super stylish but different from the sp2 look. When the –OH loses its hydrogen (the pineapple topping), this oxygen decides to join the sp² fashion trend.