Mumsnet Talk

Could do with a laugh today

Here's mine...

1 - I thought a filet mignon was something presented on fire, you know with brandy or something...a flamin yon

2 - I thought rollmops where called roll 'em ups because they're rolled up but I was kind of right with that one.

Not hilarious, though dh did laugh at me til he was nearly sick, but I'm hoping some of you have much better, more embarrassing ones.

you know if you do something wrong and then say "oh sorry, my bad"? Possibly only on american sitcoms actually...

Anyway, dh thought it was "my bag". i pissed myself when he told me, why on earth would you say "my bag " ?

that 'pilates' was pronounced 'pilots'

I thought turtles wore their shells like sweaters and they were naked underneath

Didn't realise they were attached until recently...

Until fairly recently - I thought Tripoli was in Italy

It sounds Italian...

So it's not pil-a-teys? Shit, guess I'm not going back to the gym now. Ah well, my bag!

Not me but my DH, he got upset with me to the point of starting an argument on a bus when I told him that tongue rolling is genetic and linked in no way whatsoever to having been breastfed.

Tripoli does sound Italian tabulahrasa

<pats tabulahrasa's head patronisingly>

My neice [34] thought ,until last year, that when the icecream man played his tune it was because he had sold out of ice-cream!!It took her dh a while to stop laughing long enough to enlighten her.It worked a treat when she was small though

it's pill-ah -tees cookie

Oh it is pil-a-teys

Silly Belgo

i had to google where Tripoli is

I thought a Star Wars light sabre was a light saver until I tried to order one for ds for Christmas on Amazon last year (I am 39).

I also thought that halfcaste was an acceptable term for mixed race and used in infront of friends, one of whom is mixed race. This was years ago and I am still so about it.

oops x-post, pill-ah-tees

Well I only clicked that it wasn't Italy when there were rebels and what have you on the news - they seemed awfully calm about there being all that bother in Italy...rofl

until trying to conceive ds I didn't know that women were only fertile for a few days each month I was 32

I was the same NanBullen. I had even heard of the rhythm technique and everything but hadn't added it all together in my mind.

You might need to be welsh to understand this one but until fairly recently my uncle, who is astoundingly clever but lacking in common sense, thought all hospitals in Wales were called Ysbyty Hospital. The curse of the bilingual street sign!

For non-welsh people, Ysbyty is the welsh word for hospital, and all street signs in Wales are bilingual.

Well, when I was younger, I thought that men didn't have feelings, and if they did, it wasn't manly to express them.

Then I had sons.

I mean I realised when I had sons that they are just like us.

Tripoli is a bastardisation of tres poleis, which is Greek for 'three cities'. There were lots of thriving Greek colonies in North Africa, and Libya then became a part of the Roman empire, so lots of Mediterranean influence!

i once asked a young hip colleague what a "trombelise" was. she looked at me funny and i said it was from a pop song and i was confused. i sang the line and she wet herself laughing as the line ACTUALLy went "my love has got no money, he's got his STRONG BELIEFS"

i also remember when i was a child asking my big sister what "quoi-stereotion" was (another song line). she had to break it to me that it was "crossed every ocean".

i think i should avoid pop music

Until yesterday I thought water polo involved horses.

My dh was hysterical.

I still think I've seen a match where people were on horseback in a big pool throwing a ball on the end of a stick through rings

It must have been a dream

Until very recently (I am 32) I thought that when the sports news person announced a football score as being 'on aggregate' I thought that meant the score had been adjusted in some way because of the surface they had played on. When I told my friend he said, " you mean, you thought they played on gravel?!" well yes I suppose somehow I did!

We have been to Chessington world of adventures today, and it reminded me of one of DH's corkers.

The first time we went there, he went on the flying elephants with one of the DCs. Throughout the ride, DH was gesticulating to the person supervising, as his elephant was stubbornly refusing to get airborne.

When the ride ended, DH announced mournfully: "Our one didn't go up in the air."

I said "Did you press the button? I didn't see you pressing the button."

[There is a big button with a sign saying Press this button to make me fly. ]

DH said "No. I didn't bother. I thought that was just for show."

WTF

I mean, you'd think he'd have pushed it once just to SEE WHAT HAPPENED, wouldn't you?

NB This is a true story and DH is considered an intelligent man.

I thought the wheels on vehicles moved backwards and pushed the car forwards . A few years later I went on to receive a MSc in physics

Youngish Bag

We must have had the same dream

I thought until my mid-30s that Yosemite national park in the States was pronounced with two syllables, ie rhyming with 'hose might'. My bag. I had heard Yosemite spoken aloud but never linked it with the written word.

floss I thought that too! Right up until I read this thread Can someone explain what 'on aggregate' does mean then please?

And re. the elephants ride - a few months ago I took dd on some dodgems and wondered why ours wasn't moving - the attendant had to tell me to push the pedal

I know that Buenos Aires is pronounced "Boyners Ar-rees" but I am terrified to try to say, because in my head I always pronounce it "Bew-nos Airs" and I think it'll come out like the latter.

how is it pronounced Cornish?

Cornish I did the same with Arkansas, I'd seen Arkansas and heard Arkensaw - but didn't connect them at all.

Though I don't think thst's so silly, given that Arkansas shouldn't sound like Arkensaw.

oo oo I thought the expression 'the whole kit and caboodle' was 'kitten caboodle' until I saw it written down recently...why would it be kitten??? Also my Ex DP thought unicorns existed in forests in Germany. I had to go on wikipedia go convince him otherwise

As a child I thought that the Moody Blues song 'Nights in White Satin' was actually about knights. Only recently (when I saw the song title written down) did I realise my mistake.

I didn't know Connecticut had the second c in it and smugly assumed someone had made a spelling mistake. Luckily I didn't say anything. [phew emoticon]

Bwennoss Aye-res.

My DP and father of my child didn't know what a clitoris was AND thought that the baby and wee came out the same hole!!
Ps. He's 30

ROFL at these

Everything Yosemite is pronounced Yo-sem-itty, four syllables. Anyone remember the cartoon Yosemite Sam?!

Water polo with horses Do they wear trunks?

Until I was a teenager, I thought American babies never cried, as they did not appear to do so in films/tv series.

soymama, my DP thought the same, and when I said, "no, I have two holes, just like you do," he replied with "no, I don't!" and a shocked expression. Turns out he thought the wee and the semen came out of the same place too!

YO-sem-A-Tee

Yosemite

Pink - they do!

Um, wee and semen do come out of the same hole, just from different tubes, in a penis.

That's what I mean, lol, he thought it was all one tube, connecting bladder, testes, the whole lot, all together!

Re: 'on aggregate' - a football score given as 'on aggregate' is a score for a match played over two legs, so that both teams get a home and an away match. Usually the scores of the two matches are added up to get the aggregate score to determine who wins. If that's a draw, and it's a knockout competition where someone must win, there's usually some form of weighting rule to determine who wins a tie, for example 'away goals count double' is a common one.

Thanks naoko

Yo-sem-a-tee! That does sound a lot better!

Wee and semen both come from the same hole and from the same tube in the penis (the urethra). Sperm travels up the vas deferens from the testicles and into the urethra just below the bladder where the prostate also produces seminal fluid.

at flamin' yon

Mine is dull, but I thought OMD were called in full 'A Kestral Manoeuvres in the Dark'. Quite what I thought the O stood for is anyone's guess.

male anatomy

My sister thought that the events that happened at Pearl Harbour had actually happened in Waterford (we're in Dublin). When asked why she replied "well didn't the Germans bombs us in the war?" (yes, by mistake, and I don't think it was Germans in Pearl Harbour was it love?!)

Then I asked her why in the film (the only record of the events she had encountered) were all the accents American, not Irish? She thought it was because all actors and actresses are American, sure look at Tom and Nicole in Far and Away, they are American and they have shit Irish accents.

She was at least 15.
BTW, this has totally outed me to anyone who knows me irl, as I tell everyone the story

Arkansas pron Arkensaw Just found that out right now, I thought it was two different places.

Untill I was about 16, I thought lingerie as pronounced as its spelt.

Lin-ger-ree.

Got educated when shopping with a girlfriend... i blush even thinking about it now!

oops, turns out it's me that's been reading those biology diagrams wrong all these years then! The fact I managed to get an A-level in it is a little , though! (Although I did get a D, which might explain it! )

Me too MP

The thought of a kestrel manoeuvring (Sp) in the dark has made me properly laugh out loud.

And now I realise I can't spell manoeivjeoing.

Playingwith buses, you've just leant me something new!

*learnt

Or is it taught?

It's teached, you bag!

Flamin yon that made me laugh so much.

My dp has loads of these. He thought it was labtop rather than laptop.

He didn't know that obviously had a 'b' in it. He only believed me when he checked a dictionary.

I bring this one out on every thread like this
But I used to think tigers were female lions - not in a "properly thought about it" way, just in a "never corrected a misconception I had when I was tiny" way. DH still calls them "lady lions" and laughs at me

I thought (until recently) that the shoes you get at bowling were steel toe capped!

lady lions classic!

lady lions classic!

ok, here are a few more:

me as an adult: that chickens have 4 legs (til quite recently).
as a child:
i thought that a tv show called 'reilly ace of spies' was called 'relay of spices'

my 35yo ( v clever) brother: thinks its 'championCHIP'not 'ship'.

my friend grew up thinking the 'happy eater' restaurant chain was called 'happy easter'

dd singing xmas carols... "we wish you a merry xmas and a happy new EAR"

and like most of the population, i used to think the expression 'got another THINK coming' was 'another THING coming'

also, had idea that 'calling a spade a spade' had racial overtones

When I was learning to drive, my driving instructor told me not to let the car free wheel i.e. I think not to disengage clutch.

I thought he meant '3' wheel' so in my head I had visions of the car being on 3 wheels with one in the air if that makes sense like herbie films.

I told my DH this is what I thought instructor meant and he was in hysterics and explained that it was the clutch thing.

also in a girls school and didn't really understand sexual intercourse at 11 and have visions of the sperm swimming across the bed sheets to go into the vagina. Also I said to my mother who was with a good gf at the time. 'Why don't people wear pants in bed then they wouldn't get pregnant'. They both went into hysterics.

and that is the sort of 11yo I want my DS and DD to be - the sort I was infact. Not being given alcopops, as on that other thread

Noonar when I was doing my PGDE I had a little boy in my class (must have been five or six) who was overheard singing "Gloria, hosannah headache Chelsea"

I thought AWOL stood for "absent, wandering or lost". Until quite recently. I am 34.

My very clever DD2 (she's just got a lot of A*s and As in her GCSEs) thought until a few months ago that there were traffic lights in the middle of the channel tunnel, thus allowing the cars driving (yes driving) through, to swap sides in preparation for the other side. This is even more ridiculous given that we have been through the tunnel over 100 times.

She also asked whether our cat, who had only hours before had her kittens, was a girl or a boy.

How the fuck she managed to get so many top grades will defeat us all for ever and a day.

Another one here who thought for years that Yosemite was pronounced Yoh-se-mite. . I didn't even equate Yosemite Sam with it, finally got it when I was about 25. Oh dear.

noonar I thought (think) it's 'another thing coming' too!

Thank goodness cornishmade ! ive been also calling it "yose might" two syllables all my life

I had a dear friend who discovered when we were 18yrs that ivanhoe is just that ans not "e van hoe hey"

When I went to uni and lived in a hall of residence the cleaners kept our communal toilets stocked with those paper bags you get in hotel bathrooms etc to put used sanitary towels in. My then boyfriend came to visit and after using the bathroom asked, "what are those paper bags for? I think I know but I'm not sure." I asked him what he thought they were for and he replied "for putting poo in." Ewwwwww! I'm not quite sure how he thought that would work. And why would that be a better system than a flushable toilet?!!

I thought that the lead singer with Duran Duran was simon the bomb. I was about 12 before I realised my horrible shameful mistake.

Friends dp thought that muslin squares were called Muslim cloths. We have had many an hour piss taking out of that.

I have numerous song lyric mistakes. One is the first line from the pulp song, 'common people'. She came from Greece she had a supermarket

While I don't doubt that your explanation is correct Naoko, all confusion could be avoided if the proper English term were to be used ie "the aggregated score is...." I might take myself off to pedant's corner with this one!

Until the day before yesterday, I thought the Orient Express ended in China.

When I realised that the likelihood of a train running from Paris to Shanghai on a single track was fairly remote I laughed so hard I did a tiny tiny wee. DH very kindly says it's not that unlikely and couldn't understand why I was lying on the floor howling and thumping the carpet

I believed that battery hens were so named, because they were given electric shocks to make them lay eggs. To be fair, this is what my dad told me and I am was very gullible. I was put right when aged about 17 or 18 having an intelligent conversation with work colleagues about animal welfare. Very

Jodie I thought the orient express went through china where does it go then? And why is it called orient?

I remember seeing a demonstration many years ago - when I was about 18 - outside the Sri Lankan embassy, calling for freedom for the Tamils. Back in the Office, I mentioned it and said "What are Tamils? They're little furry animals, aren't they?"

Much hilarity ensued at my expense.



Maybe I was thinking of Lemurs.

Thank fuck I'd never heard of the Tamil Tigers then! Bollocks only knows what my imagination would have done with that one. I'd have probably announced to all and sundry that the Sri Lankan authorities were cruelly cross breeding little furry animals with large striped predators, so no wonder people were protesting. [lucky escape emoticon]

Oh thank God Blondie, not just me!!

It ends in Istanbul apparently! Which is the gateway to the Orient or somesuch?

At least that's what I learned on a recent R4 programme presented by Sandy Toksvig and she would never lie to us, right? Right?!

I'm probably about to out myself to my sister, but hey ho ....

My sister, aged about 4, asked my mum what a 'commonarwee' is. As in "the Wombles of Wimbledon commonarwee"

My confession is 'sumbarine'.

Until a couple of years ago I thought scampi was an actual animal a bit like a prawn.

I also only recently found out that salad nicose is not pronounced ni-co-say.

.... and until about 5 mins ago I thought Arkansaw was an actual place

Oh oh and my lovely DH, who os streeeeeeeeeeeeeeemly clever and well read, though there were 'Arcticulated' trucks....that were refrigerated for conveying perishables

These are fabulous!

DH once tried to get me into thinking there used to be coal ran washing machines. I believed him for a few weeks minutes.

not mine, but my sister.
she thought until nearing her twenties that ducks had four legs.
Is Arkinsaw not a real place?

I love this thread!

Until last week I believed unicorns were real animals. I'm 35.

Even worse, when DH enlightened me re these mythical creatures, I didn't believe him and (the shame) felt the need to double check with my work collegues.

It wasn't til after i left high schol i realised ladies didn't wee out of their bottoms

dh also told me in a greek restaraunt one night that marmite was made out of olives. I belived him, but people sat next to us heard dh and went 'really?!' andthen dh had to 'fess up that he was taking the piss..

Another vote here for water polo involving horses.
Also feel I need to mention my understanding that a one-armed bandit is a regular, rather suspicious character that turns up in Westerns.
I happened to mention this to my family when I was about 18, and have not lived it down since...

Arkansas, pronounced Ark-can-saw, is a very real place.

Shit, I totally thought the Orient Express went through China

This will totally out me but it's time for a namechange anyway so here goes ...

When DH and I first met for some reason he told me about a type of Peruvian fighting cuvin which is a water snail which jumps by squirting water from its backside, and has fangs. When I couldn't find it on Google he drew and emailed me a picture. See my profile.

I believed him

I, until very recently, was convinced somehow that bananas were dairy products. I mean, I knew they were a fruit, but it's the texture. The texture!

I thought sanitary towels with loops went round your legs like a pair of pants rather than a belt.

Not as cringeworthy as DH who thought the sticky side of an adhesive one went on your skin ,not on your pants.

And to think, I bred with this man

Slight - that is just hilarious - bananas/cows - eh?! I am hooting!

Errrr what's scampi then?

My friend was planning a gap year - had it all sorted - voluntary work, accommodation, hundreds of emails back and forth with host family etc and asked me if she could use my pc to book flights and asked for my help when she couldn't find the airport she needed. When asked which she replied 'equador, in portugal'.

When I corrected her she just shrugged, booked the correct flights and off she went :D

As an infrequent MNER, you know the type, still does housework, I would always look at the threads by clicking on the "last day" tab, as I thought they would not be there tomorrow.

Slight - someone told me recently they were 'allergic to dairy but could tolerate bananas'

Until I had children (and sang it VERY loudly at a toddler group) I swore blind the last line of Baa Baa Black Sheep was and one for the little boy who lives down the drain

I thought cows wore shoes like horses. it was the hoof thing.

I also thought crudités was pronounced 'crew-dites' and still cringe when I remember my dear friend teaching me otherwise.

I am educated, honest.

Decapitated.....yours has made me howl!

scampi is made with langoustines or prawns/shrimp

Oh bollocks - how is crudites pronounced then??

My friend once asked what 'horse d' ov- riz' were?!

crew-di-tays

Well, every days a school day TIY

Wait a minute!!!! Did someone say that tigers are not female lions?? What are female lions called? Or male tigers??? I always thought this was true and never questioned it. Fuck me I'm complete twat.

<head explodes>

That picture Decapitated!

Some of these are hilarious

I thought the orient express went to China too?

dp told me I had to take my passport the first time we went to Wales so I did and then wondered why no one had asked to see it when we crossed the border...

Bill a female lion is a lioness, a male tiger is a... erm male tiger.

Lions and tigers have been mated though and made a 'liger' which is massive.

Lionesses and lions
Tigers and tigresses.

You are indeed a complete twat

some posters on this thread are surely joking??

I just googled liger in case you were taking the piss

Just asked the kids and they gave me the right answer straight away. They are 10 and 6. Fuck.

DD sings:

Ding dong merrily on high,
In heav'n the bells are ringing:
Ding dong! verily the sky
Is riv'n with angel singing.
Gloooooooooooooo-ria,
and Santa's in his shelter.

Back then I had no idea what a joker he is - but yes, the wings should really have set alarm bells ringing . He's convinced DS that he used to be in the Octonauts until he had a scuffle with Captain Barnacle and got himself kicked out.

Whenever I see Dún Laoghaire, half my brain is saying "Dun La Go Hair" and the other half is screaming "It's Dun Leery! You know it's Dun Leery! Stop saying Dun La Go Hair!"

I just told DH (he's a zoology prof) about the "tigers are female lions" misconception and he roared with laughter and said "What?! That's like little kids thinking cats are lady dogs!"

You twonks.

DS used to sing (at nursery) his version of Away in a Manger

Away in a danger
No crisps for a bed

I am properly laughing out loud at some of these - thank you, thank you: it has been a shitty day, I needed this .

I too was confused about Arkansas/Arkansaw and Yose-mite/Yo-seh-mitty - for many years, inspite of living and travelling extensively in the States .

I was in my late 20s when I finally understood that the colours 'bayghe' and 'beysh' were both the same, namely beige <<slaps own forehead>>

Of course - tigress! Now I feel a twat for thinking a male tiger had a special name.

Bill I wasn't taking the piss re: liger - they are very impressive no?

decapitated another at getting kicked out of octonauts - hope your ds tells someone about that!

I feel a a namechange coming on. <slinks off thread> like a slinking Liger...

That eating too many coco pops makes you infertile

Ds who is 4 believes I have a shrinking cap...I caught him telling his friend who now also believes I have one

Ds who is 4 believes I have a shrinking cap...I caught him telling his friend who now also believes I have one

love the kestrel and lion and tiger

I'm dubious about some of those Liger photos. One looks like it's a tiger crossed with a hippo. That can't be right surely?

I too thought scampi was a creature

Have googled it now and stand corrected.

my favourite liger picture....

I too thought that lingerie was pronounced how it's written. Would be a very sexy word? No?

This liger appears to be a bit wrong.

Ah yes Bill - thats what I was thinking of

I thought a scampi was a creature too.

Sorry, that previous picture isn't a liger, it's clearly Bagpuss on steroids.

Haha madamdeathstare - a lippo not a liger I think?

I thought the first Live Aid song was 'Feed the Birds'

*tippo

I used to be a geography teacher and i frequently asked my Head of Department stupid questions. My worst by far was when i pondered aloud whether the sun rose in the west and sat in the east if you were in the southern hemisphere

Not sure why i wasn't sacked on the spot

Loving this. My friend & I were puzzled s to why Alice Cooper wanted to be a lettuce. A Kestrel Manoeuvres is comedy gold! The tiger/ lion thing is good - its true that you get two different animals (liger/tigon) when cross-bred depending whether you have female lion or tiger. They get big because the female lion has the 'grow' gene and the male lion has the 'stop' gene; other way round with tigers. So you get two 'grow' and no 'stop' (apparently this is approximately true) And quite odd, imo

In primary school a boy asked me in front of the whole class if I was a virgin. I answered "of course not" thinking that virgins were ladies who wore blue dresses and rode around on donkeys at Xmas.

ho hum

That Kiefer Sutherland was in fact called Keith O'Sullivan (because what sort of name is Keifer anyway??)

Also confused Roger Daltry and Timothy Dalton...

A friend told me that his friend said at the end of 'Gone with the Wind' - "Funny name for a romantic hero, Reg Butler"

Until quite recently, I thought CID stood for copper in disguise.
I still don't know what it stands for.

Someone on our freecycle tonight is offering a "Chester Draws."

i love it when people advertise 3 birth caravans, is that for triplets

I used to pronounce 'pharmaceutical' as pharmacuticle. For years. I still do, occasionally.

I genuinely thought Gok Wan was straight, but camp, until he went on the F word and told Gordon Ramsay he liked penis too much to be straight.

Criminal Investigation Department.

Copper In Disguise!

DD1 was 21 when DD2 was born. The first time she saw her she exclaimed "she has knees!". She thought they grew later, like teeth.

MIL tells me about her friend who has Alkheimers.

I think she's conflating Alzheimers and Al Qaida, which would indeed be a bad thing.

I am crying with laughter at some of these, especially the water polo and decapitated's dh! faverolles, crime investigation department.

I have to admit to not having heard of ligers or tigons before and that when I was young (very young though), I though cats were female and dogs were male. Apparently dh thought the same.

Most English speakers pronounce lingerie incorrectly even when they think they are pronouncing it correctly. Mind you, I'm thinking of it as a French word.

there was a sign outside a shop i saw once advertising "pillar cases"

DD refuses to believe me that her new school skirt-come-shorts are not called "clots".

Well, TIY, what else would you use to cover your pillars?!

My H thought that the Katy Perry song went:

I kissed a girl and I liked it,the taste of her cherry chopsticks

It took me ages to convince him it's chapstick.

I've also got friends who insist that 'You've Got The Love' goes

Sometimes it seems the Lord is just too rough

I googled it but they still don't believe me

Had an epiphany in church last week - I've always thought missionaries and mercenaries were the same thing . I couldn't work out why church would be collecting donations to support mercenaries/missionaries in east Africa

I also just had to look up the orient express, I always assumed it was the same as the trans-siberian railway (which DOES go to china!)

Clots! Thats what I thought they were called (when I was about 9, honestly)

WTF would cherry chopsticks be?

hahaha heaven.... what was going through your mind when the church talked of sending missionaries out lol

ILovePonyo she is 9, so it's understandable!

I went on a hen night in Whitby - quite a few years ago now. The morning after the drunken night before we were all looking in a joke shop window and a few of the group suggested going in it, at which point I exclaimed "We can't!". The collective group spun and stared at me with a "why?" at which point I authoritatively stated "because you are not allowed to leave a joke shop unless you buy something".

It was at that very second, at a whole 23 years old that I realised I had been indoctrinated into this belief by my parents in their (very successful) attempt to keep me out of joke shops.

I still can't quite believe they managed to do that to me.

I came across a report from a newly-qualified social worker that repeatedly recommended 'rest bite' care for an elderly man.

i wonder what rest bite involves.... hmmm

Tallulah, I'm fairly sure knee CAPS do grow later just like teeth. Though their little leggies still bend without obviously.

Euphemia I haven't got a clue,chopsticks made from cherry wood maybe?! God knows wtf he was thinking pmsl
Then again,this is from the man who thought that if you put your finger inside your belly button it goes inside your body,and that if you massage your temples for more than 20 seconds you'll die (I used to have great fun doing it to wind him up )

Oh that's good Euphemia, well makes me a bit better at least!

at 'rest bite' - has anyone pointed this out to her I wonder?

also the guerilla soldiers in S Africa. I thought they were gorillas

Oh, and my then 9 year old asked me about the 'gentleman's club' in our town. He said he'd seen a sign advertising laptop dancing, and he wondered whether they had specially strengthened laptops that didn't break when you danced on them.

my son used to insist on calling an elderly family friend called vernon, vermin!

Read 'sonofabitch' as sonar-far-bitch for years.

Also, DH phsl when I panicked that leaving a plug socket switched on with nothing plugged in would mean electricity would leak out <actually still not entirely convinced by the whole electricity thing>

I've been legally allowed to drive a car for a goodly while. I thought until a few years ago that when you want to thank the driver behind, for letting you in, you quickly braked 3 times so as to get the flashing lights. In the car with my sister one day I did this and she was" WTF are you doing Tufty?". Explained in an 'I cannot believe this is what you thought!' voice about the hazzard lights.

Until about a year ago, I thought planes carried parachutes for every passenger

I thought a 'bomsy tit' was some sort of slang for a messy room. I was 40 (40!!!) before I realised it was 'a bomb has hit it". I told my elder sis, she hadnt realised either

DD2 calls lingerie 'linger here'. Maybe she's right

Hmmm I used to believe that a man (or woman) sat inside a cash machine and dispensed all the cash and pushed it through the slot.

I was TWENTY before the penny dropped

Arkansas!?!? Arkensaw?!?!?

<slaps forehead>

Scampi are creatures, they're Dublin Bay prawns!

(Or so Rick Stein says ... is he lying to me again?)

Until quite recently, I was pretty sure Lichfield was somewhat oop north, near Berwick-upon-Tweed. No idea why. And I thought that Moscow was really, really cold with snow on the ground all year long ... I took the mickey out of this guy who said it was actually quite warm there in the summer compared with the UK and laughed at him in the middle of a party.

Turns out he was right, and as he grew up there he would kind of know! (and I married him so I am never allowed to forget it.)

I also thought jaywalking was an American word for street prostitution until very recently.

I do love a moan when 'modern' songs come on the radio.

"I just wanna make you sweat" by snoop dog. How revolting I said. Why on earth would anyone find that attractive, I continued.

My 16 year old son then pointed out that its the radio edit and they had changed the word from wet.

"Wet!" I exclaimed. What's he going to do? Hose you down? Has he got a water pistol?

And then the penny dropped.

Which wouldn't have been so bad if there wasn't four of my son's mates in the back seat of the car.

Up until yesterday I thought whether was spelt wether.
It looks right to me spelt wether & in my daily goings I type wether a lot.

Yesterday I typed an 11 page document that was spattered with wethers, I was very when my new boss took a red pen out to ^ a h all over the document.

I went back to my office to google it and <ahem> he was right

I also thought it was a trombolish in that song so thankfully I have learned 2 new things this week!

hahahha keep

Another one I never connected was Illinois with 'Illi-noy'

really did laugh out loud at that one keep haha

Until reading this thread, I thought a liger was a joke from Napoleon Dynamite.

My DS's DP was convinced that the phrase was 'all intensive purposes'. Not 'all intents and purposes'.

Purposes looks weird when you write it down...I'm paranoid now that I've spelt it wrong.

Which reminds me that back in the days pre internet when I had a long distance relationship with someone, it massively annoyed me that he wrote 'weird' as 'wierd'.

When I was 14, a friend told a group of us that she had had a dog when she was younger, but it had got ill, so her parents decided the dog would be better to go and live on a farm. The next day everyone was pissing themselves laughing about it, which I thought was really cruel - I'd be so upset in her position. They had to explain what 'going to live on a farm' meant.

DS thought that the Paolo Nutini song was 'But vegetable, I've got my baby!', not 'But best of all'.

my mum still says half caste except when she catches herself on and says coffee and cream

i wish i were dead then

"Add message | Report | Message poster tallulah Sat 27-Aug-11 22:01:11
DD1 was 21 when DD2 was born. The first time she saw her she exclaimed "she has knees!". She thought they grew later, like teeth."

I think kneecaps do grow at about 18m - i have a 2yo and she has them!

How many of us had vaguely heard of "Donkey Houghtey"?

I also used to think jaywalking was somehow linked to prostitution. Still not sure exactly what it is - crossing the road? From a country that lets everyone carry a gun...

I convinced my sister that pelican crossings made their loud beeping sounds so that blind drivers knew when people were crossing.

Sorry if this is a repeat...have read some but not all the messages yet..
I thought until recently that the bad guy in Star Wars was Dark Raider!

My parents pissed themselves when for some unknown reason I mentioned the US state oo-hee-oh (ohio), I also thought organdie was a colour , no idea where I got that from. Dp thought that babies were like dogs and didn't open their eyes for a bit, he asked me when dd would open them, I replied most likely when she woke up, he was very .

i remember ds coming home from yr 1 and telling me about the new star wars film and the new baddie 'daft mole'

I only realised very recently, at the grand old age of 32 that mange touts are not pronounced manga-towt. And I thought the shop assistants in sainsburys were the thick ones for not knowing what I meant! Ditto, MediSed, got funny looks in Boots asking for med-iced

I also made an arse of myself once, by remarking how uncanny it was that every judge had Justice for a first name in a room full of high brow professionals (of which I am supposed to be one).

The Yosemite one is new to me, have always thought it was Yo-Semite. Yo-se-mit-ey sounds weird in my head.

might as well add another one....a colleague pronounced the word "awry" as "awree" - she was corrected amid hysterical laughing!

ok....you've really got me going now...a very close friend was discussing 'menstruaLATION' with a group of women! She must have mentioned it 10 times. I did not have the heart to correct her! Still cringe with embarrassment at the thought of it!

i have just remembered that dp's friend always used to call the kerb the kerv (like curve)

and dp used to say alumiLium instead of aluminium

Scampi is an actual creature - called Norway lobster or Dublin bay prawns or in French, Langoustine - all different names for the same critter apparently. I have no idea though, why we then call it Scampi once it's been crumbed and fried!

stealth - yeah, it's crossing the road at a non-designated crossing place - utterly mad! I'm glad I'm not the only one thought it was something much dodgier.

Not me, but my best friend; the first time she ordered whitebait in a restaurant she asked the waiter if they could be filleted. We're still laughing about it some...erm...30 years later

I knew what a blackguard was - and I knew the pronunciation was 'blaggard' - but still managed to refer to a blackguard as a 'black guard' - aged 23, much to the hilarity of an older colleague

I thought Arkansas was pronounced phonetically- I knew that there was also a state pronounced "Ar-kan-saw" but I never connected the two

See, now I just always thought scampi was the recipe name!

For the confused, Arkansas, Yosemite etc are Native American names. Hence the not usual pronunciation.

What is "blackguard"
DH used to pronounce "caveat" as "cav-eet" - not a word we use in daily conversation so I only discovered this at the age of about 28/29. I corrected him and he was laughing at me and adamant he was right. Then I found one of those talking dictionary things on the web.

BIL used to thnk the word was "molticoloured" and did not see that it was made up of "multi" and "coloured".

Am I on my own with Donkey Houghtey then?

Yes, they are native American names, but if 'Kansas' is pronounced as it is spelled then why not Ar-kansas?? I feel aggrieved and '^tricked^.

I have also learned about ligers and tigons and li-tigons and ti-ligers after googling the creature at the first mention of liger as I was convinced it was just made up <<squinty eyes of suspicion>>

As a child I hated cucumber and my gran told me eating cucumber made you fast . I was staying on her farm for the summer holidays and amongst other things had been trying to catch flies with my bare hands - yes, I was easily amused. Had a piece of cucumber and whaddayakno caught a frigging fly!! I believed cucumber made you fast for many, many years...

Because they are words from different native languages with different pronunciations. The spellings have just been 'Americanized'.

Ah, that makes sense, thanks Tee

I had to leave Weightwatchers because I was not able to take advice from a leader who kept extolling the virtues of Brock-O-lie

A blackguard is an old fashioned term for a scoundrel (and, afaik, does not have any racist connotations)

When I was young my mum used to pronounce 'Donkey Houghtey' as 'Donkey Shot'. I hope I learnt the correct pronunciation before I actually said it publicly, Stealth

But when someone is described as exhibiting "quixotic behaviour" how do you pronounce that?

And to add to the mix, last night I remembered the time when my twenty three year old self argued long and hard with a man from the north east of England, stridently proclaiming to him that County Durham was in Northern Ireland.

< cringe >

Quick-Zaw-tic, BalloonSlayer.

quicks-ottic. I suppose it's been Anglicised. I doubt the Spanish have the expression 'quixotic behaviour' anyway. Although happy to be proved wrong, as, actually, I have no idea!

That's what I thought, Tee.

But why not Kee-hote-ic?

(Mind you I heard Jeremey Paxman pronounce Don Juan as it reads rather than "Don Hwan" and I was but I looked it up and apparently it's OK to say it both ways.)

I have no idea BalloonSlayer. But you would say Don Key-hoe-tay was Quick-zaw-tic!

Gala 'freed from desire' (that classic song) - a dear friend thought the lyrics were 'he's got his tambourine' rather than 'strong beliefs'

Dh thought ham and pork were two different parts of a pig.

It's Wiki, but apparently:

"English speakers generally attempt something close to the modern Spanish pronunciation when saying Quixote (Quijote), as [d&#594;&#331; ki&#720;&#712;ho&#650;te&#618;], although the traditional English pronunciation /&#712;kw&#618;ks&#601;t/ or /&#712;kw&#618;kso&#650;t/ is still sometimes used.

The traditional English rendering is preserved in the pronunciation of the adjectival form quixotic, i.e., /kw&#618;k&#712;so&#650;t&#616;k/ or /kw&#618;k&#712;s&#594;t&#618;k/, the foolishly impractical pursuit of ideals, typically marked with rash and lofty romantic ideals."

oops, sorry about the ASCII code in the middle! It's the phonetics!

Oh, I thought that 'meat' (you ate) and 'muscle' (what makes you move) were two quite seperate things....

I have a lovely image in my mind now of little foals with armbands in the toddler pool, learning how to play water polo

8 months pregnant with ds, in hospital due to itching and polyhydramneous. The lady vicar comes to do visiting rounds. We get talking. I ask her; "Are you from the Catholic church?"

She replies, verrry slowly...

"No dear"

Luna, that reminds me of the time I was talking to a distant family friend who is a priest. He looked at DS and asked if I was married, to which I laughingly replied "oh god no!".

He smirked and said "I think you're getting confused, I'm just his representative"!

reminds me of the time I was talking to a distant family friend who is a priest. He looked at DS and asked if I was married, to which I laughingly replied "oh god no!".

He smirked and said "I think you're getting confused, I'm just his representative"!

My partner delighted in taking the piss out of me for weeks when I told him off for 'Renegading on the deal'.

For youngishbag and bottersnike

I was embarrassingly old before I realised that 'wiggars' not a general term for insects, spiders and all the other things we now call 'mini beasts'. It was just a family term invented by my older brother for things that wiggle.

Pacific Dogwood, are you sure she wasn't saying they make you fart? Cos they do that, you know.

I remember having a very embarrassing event in Trivial Pursuit with friends - the question was "Where is Swallows and Amazons set?". Now, I hadn't read these but my then-BF was a huge fan, because they went to the Norfolk Broads every year on holidays and he said they were to do with that. Like a twat, I had believed him and stood my ground against my (far better educated and had actually read them) team mate who said it was the Lake District. Obviously she was right - still don't know why she let me give my answer

Thumbwitch some of the books in the Swallows and Amazons series were set in the Norfolk broads
here

My (Christian) friend firmly believed Judaism & Christianity were just two branches of the same religion. As in, the Jewish people also worshipped Jesus.

Well that explains that then, Elefant! Thank you. I feel a little better (it's been a tiny thorn for nearly 20 years!)

Until about the age of 18 I had no idea what gay men did during sex, I thought they just rubbed their willies together or something. The idea of bumsex never entered my head

Right as we are all fessing up... I was very young when on holiday with family I saw a sign which said Tall Trees Walk and turned to my mother and said "but mummy, trees don't walk".

However it was years and years (at least in my 20's), before I realised what the sign actually meant , I just thought the sign was wrong.

I have had to correct people who say pacifically instead of specifically; I had to explain to one that the Pacific was an ocean and these are business people.

LMAO at bumsex... VERY funny!!!!!!!!

thumbwitch, sadly I need no help whatsoever with farting .

Iklboo, well, Jesus was a Jew and ASAIK in Judaism Jesus is seen as a prophet but not worshipped as such. So the two religion share a lot of the same roots albeit Judaism being much much older of course.

frazzle, at bumsex.

Until I investigated how to start a sourdough starter myself I did not realise that sourdough is also made with yeasts. I thought there were doughs that rise with 'yeast' and others that rise with 'sourdough' . I think I learnt that last year, aged 44.

You live, you learn <<shrugs>>

Pacific I know that bit about Jesus, but my friend thought the two religions were EXACTLY the same, but Judaism followed the Old Testament as well. She thought synagogues had crosses as well as The Star of David.

also St john in Jane Eyre. was his name sinjohn. bit confused?

ROFL thanks for sharing. OK up until quite recently i hadnt thought that robins were around other than at Christmas time and mentioned the fact that they were around "not just att 9hristmas and WInter you know!".

alemci - I would have thought so, like Norman St.John Stevas.

Yep, St John pronounced Sinjun.

Not quite on thread but similar. My 22 year old ds has just asked me if I knew why breakfast was called breakfast. I was surprised he'd got to that age without realising . To be fair though, I obviously didn't tell him and he went to a French school until the age of nearly 16.

I thought that the word Career meant a place where televisions were made, cos our black and white telly had "made in Korea" on it. So a grown-up talking about their career to my ears was talking about a big television factory where they worked.

I am permanently ashamed of myself for that I also, when driving back from university on the way home for the first time, got to the M6, only to panic and have to text my mother to ask whether I needed to go North or South. I was going from Wales to London.

<shakes head in wonder at self>

when I had just passed my driving test I was driving on the motorway for the very first time and wasn't sure I had enough petrol and was feeling very nervous. I found myself thinking that I'd better hurry up and get home before I ran out of petrol!!!

CornishMade, I was told, when younger, that scampi was made from the tails of monk fish.

I always confused the pronunciation of hyperbole when I was younger
hyper-bole
or hi-per-bo-lee

vivid I sat in on an English teacher's lesson and she pronounced it that way too. Twenty minutes later her class of 30 were pronouncing it like that as well. I was for her.

I did not know Jesus was a Jew

What did you think he was?

Lol er never really thought about it! Was never mentioned in our religious classes at school either!

carrots, thats a bad one! I was once in a geography lesson and the teacher came to ask me where Gibralter was on the map, she couldn't find it so I told her where it was and she still couldn't find it!

Carrots, which way did your teacher tell you to pronounce 'hyperbole'?

hy-per-bo-lee

She pronounced it hyper bowl.

Yes, vivid, I knew it was pronounced like that, just wondered whether carrots' teacher was making them pronounce it the other way.

As far as I know it should be hy per bo lay as vivid says, allowing for different accents.

P.s. I am now a trained English teacher

As an 8 year old I told my parents after moving to new house...I was surprised that it it so windy here........."even though there are not so many trees".

pacific - my dad still thinks that about meat and muscle being different things - we try to explain it to him but he is adamant that muscle is the gristly bits only. He's a reasonably intelligent 61 year old man who's lived in close proximity to farms for over twenty years ...

balloonslayer love the 'chester draws' made me lol

And am also a bit disappointed aeroplanes don't have parachutes for all of us...

When I was a young Neighbours fan and Guy was in court for 'GBH' whenever they referred to 'grievous bodily harm' I assumed this was a person...

Much of the persecution of Jews over the centuries has been justified with 'well, they killed Jesus' which is wrong as it was the Roman wot did it, and even if it had been 'the Jews', they'd've killed one of their own, and anyway what kind of justification is that to go after a whole ethnic group??

Sorry to go all serious.

I thought the Outer Hebrides where somewhere in the Caribbean until I moved to Scotland. In my defense, I am not British and did not grow up here. But still... .

Imperial, sorry I missed the "carrots" at the start of your message - it's been a long day!

LRD, the penny re the meat/muscle bit only dropped for me during my first anatomy dissection with real cadavers - and I had grown up very rurally, seen animals slaughtered etc.

When i was about 7 my parents were looking for a new house to move to so we would visit lots of newly built showroom houses that were set up with furniture, to make it feel like a real house. At the time I thought the house was set up for the family that would be moving in, so if it had a nursery it was built for a family with a baby, or a girl's room they have a litle girl etc. When we left the house that had a nursery room we passed a family with a baby and I said 'Oh that must be the family moving in'. No they were just browsing like us. NOBODY corrected me! Why couldn't someone have explained it to me?!

Pacific of the four Christian gospels, some are more reliable than others. The . . . ahem . . . least reliable, according to scholars is the Gospel According to John (I think they have managed to work out that it wasn't written very near the time Jesus lived, whereas the others were).

Anyway, it is in John's Gospel that has the most detailed bit of the Jews shouting for Jesus's crucifixion, and even a bit which has them shouting [basically] "let our descendants be punished if this turns out to be the wrong thing to do." This has been used as a stick to beat the jewish race with ever since.

AlfieandannieRose when I was PG with DS2, we were thinking of moving to get another bedroom, and DS1 and DD drove me barmy by constantly saying things like: "Oh this house is perfect for us Mummy! There's a cot in the bedroom!"

No matter how hard I tried to explain that those things belonged to the vendors and would not remain in the house should we buy it, it never sunk in.

I think they are still sad that we didn't get the house with the TV in one of the children's bedrooms. They were both hoping to get that room.

BalloonSlayer Im glad I wasn't the only one to think that!

a friend of mine (who did not have children at the time) thought Inset days were 'insect days' when all the children studied insects for a day.

Another one who thought Tripoli was in Italy and that the Jedi order carried out their fight with Light Savers.

Vivid - isn't monkfish extremely expensive? Not exactly cheap 'scampi' flesh!

Liking 'hyper bowl'. This can be done with many words, providing simply hours of educational fun for all the family!!!
Awry - Awe Ree; Misled - MyZuld; Weeknight - Wee Knight; and so on.

Not quite the same but when I first got to UK with my limited knowledge of the language, I somehow managed to mix the words "network" and "Natwest" and for several months used "Natwest" instead of network and believe it or not no one had the guts to correct me until I realised myself. Oh they must have laughed!

Aww gorieonine - I would have told you. I have a friend from abroad who used to pronounce the word for a local food slightly incorrectly, which unfortunately made it a local word for poo! I told her straight away whilst rolling on the floor laughing.

Don't worry, she got her revenge, laughing at me lots when she started teaching me her language

My Mum grew up in the Norfolk contryside where there are lots of tiny roads which had signs saying By Road on them. After she'd been driving around for a number of years with my Dad she asked him where 'By Road' was and how come she'd never been there as it must be massive to have so many signs.

I still remember going to my first cocktail bar aged 19 and asking for a 'strawberry dye keery'. Oh, the shame.

There's a town in County Durham called Bishop Auckland - I was in my 20's when I spotted it on a road sign and realised it wasn't called 'Bishaborkland' (and I had been there several times!)

When I was about 13 I did a Science test at school which was mulpile choice. I remember that I wasn't very good at Science but thought I might be able to eliminate answers that were obviously not the right ones and hope for the best. One of the questions was about the tide and what rules it. I eliminated the clearly most ridiculous answer very quickly - that the moon had anything to do with it. I mean, come on! As if the moon would have anything to do with how the tides work...

Of course I was wrong and my DP has laughed at me ever since I told him about it. In fact it is now used as household response to anything vaguely stupid or naive.

When I was young I had lots of books of amazing facts, and was particularly fond of ones about the human body. I was very impressed that your body temperature inside is 98 degrees.

I was in the upper sixth and had place at uni to study biology when got into an argument with a friend and the biology teacher that it would be fine to put my hand into water that had been boiling a few minutes earlier as it must be below 98 degrees by now.

At that point it finally dawned on me that American books use Fahrenheit and while the human body is amazing, it isn't two degrees off boiling...

lemon, I always call it Bishy Porkland. I don't know why

Until v recently like last week I used to think that the phrase 'I don't give a dam" was rude as it contained a Bad Word <<prim>>.
Well, dear Reader, it doesn't.
A 'dam' is a small Indian coin. Not giving a dam means you are not prepared to pay anything for it. Not rude at all <<relief>>

You must have heard of damming a river!

damning? I know I don't give a damn is damn - not sure about the river

See, that's the point, it's NOT a damn, it's a dam, not as in the blocked river, but a coin. Honest, 'tis true Colin Dexter says so

Here
And here

<<rests case>>

at '...as it has been misquoted for the last 70 years there is probably no point in correcting...'

Well I never knew that (obviously)

Me neither - I am stupidly pleased with this factoid . I shall use that expression henceforth all the time, whether appropriate or not, smug in the knowledge that it is Not Rude

Similar to the "chester draws" above, I receive an email at work inviting me to a summer fair with a "Tom Bowler".

We had a supply teacher for our history class when we were about to take our mock GCSE's. The teacher was a bit quirky and different to our other strict teachers. Anyway we were learning about Florence Nightingale and he said 'Did you know what she was gay?'.

So when a question came up in our mocks - What was the one thing no one knew about Florence Nightingale?' I immediately wrote what I believed to be true! When our real teacher came back and handed back our papers she brought this question up as she could not believe what someone had written, yes i was the only one! She named and shamed me!

On the theme of religion, when I was a child I thought Jesus was born at Christmas, grew up really really fast and died at Easter, in the same year!

Pacific that is awesome. And makes so much more sense.

More religion - somehow, despite primary school assemblies and 3 years of Sunday School, I thought belief in gods and religions had died out with the Victorians and now it was just nice tradition.

So then I was interviewed for a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school - never done an interview in my life. I find the first teacher - I only have her name, not subject.

She confirms who I am and her name. Then she leans over and says "Now, dear, what does God mean to you?"
Totally blank, eventually I mutter "Er... not much really, why?"
She tries again. "Well, what sort of people believe in God?"
Phew - I think I know the answer to this one. I've seen Blue Peter go to Ethiopia and stuff.
"People in third world countries who don't know any better."

At this point the RE teacher had an asthma attack and had to be taken to hospital.

I always thought wellies are boots you wear OVER your normal shoes, kind of like raincoats for your feet. That was until I got my first pair a few years back. I'm 41.

Pacific that is an excellent fact. I wonder if there's any chance of them dubbing Gone With the Wind now that you've shown Clark Gable to be innocent

<<Shuffles off hoping someone understands what the hell I'm going on about>>

Tom Bowler, arf - took me a while to get it, too

notcitrus, you are going straight to that Hot Place, aren't you, but you know that .

LRD <<bows>> And I really got it from one of Colin Dexter's Morse books: didn't believe it, looked it up et voila. I shall henceforth use the phrase at every opportune or inopportune occasion and irritate educate everybody with my superior knowledge .
Oh, oh, I could post it in Pedant's Corner, couldn't I?! <<evil plan>>

Lunatic, x-post.
Clark Gable could never be an innocent, no matter what he exactly said [drool]

Just asked 10 year old DS and he knows about ligers and tigons and which way around they are too! I didn't know

notmydog - galoshes are the wellie-type things you wear over your shoes. I think.

Hmmmmmm. Much though I love the "i don't give a dam" referring to some old and very small Indian coin, I'm having troubles with it. According to this page on Wiki, it is folk etymology in Indian English; but doesn't say that is the categoric definition.

It seems that it's been a longheld (2 centuries plus) view that the word involved is "damn", not dam - but who knows!

This has led me on a factfinding mission [saddo] and have followed through the thought about "not giving a tinker's (sorry) cuss" being related to not giving a damn - and have found this:
not giving a tinker's damn/cuss
"The etymology given for this phrase indicates that it is the solder used by tinkers to mend pewter ware.
I always understood that the tinker actually had a small device among his tools that he could use to dam up molten solder and hold it in place over a repair. It was this tool that was actually a tinker's dam and not the solder itself. But I have no basis for this conjecture except having read it somewhere, years ago. If someone doesn't give a tinker's dam (or cuss) the they are reckoned to be completely indifferent to the outcome of an event. Dam (note the lack of a terminal "n") is used today to describe a structure for holding back water; so it was in the days of tinkers. They used to travel the country earning their livings mending pots and pans and sharpening knives. They would mend the pots by filling the leak on the inside with some clay and then repairing the outside with permanent material. When this was done the clay was discarded. The clay stopper was the tinker's dam. The dam was also known as a cuss. Both were worthless, hence the saying.
An alternative explanation is based on the supposed frequency that tinkers swore - so frequent that the value of their 'damn' was worthless. You choose - I prefer the first explanation. "
Found here

So it seems that there really is no definitive answer to this one!

Until my early twenties I thought that an Anchovy was something a bit like an Olive. I've no idea why I thought this but it made for an interesting trip to the Sea Life centre.

Oh, the shoals of shimmering olives just off the Azores! (Azores are tasty pickled vegetables served as appetizers. Delicious)

I am crying at A Kestrel Manoeuvres in the Dark and Henry's "catch these threads - it's their final day!" MN confusion.

I only realised a few years ago that cod liver oil is made from <shock> cod. From their livers to be precise. I never even realised it was made from fish, what kind of madman would make medicine from fish?

In my defence I had never tasted it (thank feck) nor seen it written down and would probably have spelt it "codlevroil"

When I first went on a transatlantic flight (in economy – start as you mean to go on!), it was a night flight. After drinks and dinner were cleared away I sat expectantly, truly thinking that the cabin crew were going to show us all to our night quarters at any moment.

I was nearly twenty.

I thought HMV stood for Her Majesty's Videos.

for some reason I have until this year very recently thought that Good Friday was actually called Black Friday.

I have no idea why, possibly because jesus was killed on Good Friday? Was he? I have no clue tbh, I'm always just glad to have a day off!

Am crying here LadyClarice!

LadyClarice- I can't imagine your when if finally dawned on you

While driving my DM home one evening we drove past three pubs all with large boards outside advertising Stella Artois. DM turns to me and said 'this Stella woman owns a lot of pubs in this part of town'. I pissed myself laughing.

She also said she was really please with a pair of hespandralls she had purchased recently - I think she meant espadrilles.

LadyClarice hahahahaha - priceless!

NanBullen - yes, Jesus was killed on Good Friday and in the Lord of the Dance song it says:
"I danced on the Friday when the sky turned black..." So that may be where you got it from.

LadyClarice, I did laugh when I read your expectant post!

Oh that song takes me back Thumbwitch !

it was called Black Friday in the old days, actually.
I think (but don't quote me on this ) that Catholics called it Black Friday more often, but I have heard the phrase used in CofE too.

Carrotsandcelery, I think I was more crushed and embarrassed than anything else ...

LadyClarice, did you ask someone?

Oh thumbwitch, didn't someone on one of these types of thread once say they thought it was "I am the lord of the damn settee" ?

I didn't realise that the drink NRG was Energy - I thought there was a drink called Nrg

talkingnonsense - they might have done, yes!
I thought for a moment it was Shabba's DS3, but have just looked back at the thread where it is mentioned and she says he used to sing "I am the Lord of God's settee" so possibly not.

Longtime, thank God no, I think I cottoned on just in time not to ask!

at 'I am the lord of the damn settee'.

In our house that's me. I ALWAYS sit on the comfiest sofa and stretch my legs out so I take up the whole of it. No one dares argue. But if guests who don't know the 'rules' sit on it, I'm too chicken gracious to tell them to feck off and will sit on the inferior one.

'Lord of the damn setee' reminds me of something I had previously managed to block from my memory

Jason Donovan sang a song called 'too many broken hearts' or somesuch and there's a line in it that goes 'I won't give up the fight for you'

I thought it was 'I won't give up the Pope for you' no idea why!

Ah song lyrics - so many!
My two worst were:
Abba - "one of us" - where it says "So i dealt you the blow, one of us had to go" I truly believed it said "when the bus had to go".
Donna Lewis "I love you always forever" - not just me but also my friend - we both thought she was singing "you've got the most stumbling blue eyes" instead of unbelievable blue eyes. Had a bit of a drunken row about that one

Bee Gees 'How Deep Is Your Love' apparently does not say:
'when you come to me on a submarine'

Or

'When the auction let us bid'

(it's 'when you come to me on a summer breeze and 'when they all should let us be')

Does anyone remember the big round black security cameras that Boots used to have on their ceilings? They used to move round in circles (obviously zooming in on people) and I used to think there was a very small bloke sat in there operating it

I've got a couple...
Mine was when I was 11, the school chaplain asked me what religion my sister and I were... I replied we're little heathens
Cue a phone call to my mother and shortly afterwards a christening for both of us!! (CofE)

At Uni a vegetarian girl I knew was wearing a sheepskin coat. I used to make a point of asking veggies what their stance was on leather goods if I spotted them wearing any, because it used to annoy me when veggies came over all sanctimonious while wearing leather shoes, for example.
Turns out she thought sheepskin just came off thew animal a bit like a snake shedding old skin! We didn't take the mick much, oh no...

I found out that a friend thought you couldn't have a meal from a pre theatre menu unless you had actually bought tickets to go to the theatre. She was 50 at the time.

I went to school with a girl called Jane Kelly for seven years. She was in my class and we were really friendly, and I always called her 'Jane Kelly'.

It wasn't until the upper sixth that she said to me 'You do know that Kelly is my surname don't you? It's not a double-barrelled first name'.

OMG I'm going red now!!!

Oh, thought of another one - I thought that Phuket was pronounced Fuck-it until I was about 22.

I once wittered on and on like a complete wanker about the beautiful handmade Nava-Jo trinkets in some very arty American shop staffed by very right-on lentil weavers, much to my boyfriend's amusement.

I kept describing a problem that a company (whose contract I was bidding for) was experiencing as being the elephant on their shoulder.

Song lyrics....I was convinced for years that the song from the Commitments went "take me to the river, watch me drown".

"Wash me down" - obviously!

I had a huge argument when I was about 17 because I was CONVINCED that tripe is a fish related to trout.

I knew a young girl who thought Shakespeare In Love was written by Shakespeare. Went to see it at the cinema, loved it, and went on and on about how she never thought Shakespeare would be her cup of tea but this film had changed her mind. She kept talking, and it became apparent she thought the screenplay was written by Shakespeare himself. Just to check I asked, "So did Shakespeare actually write it this film?" and she, very seriously replied, "Yes." She was a bit of a mad tempered, moody cow who would have assumed she was being made a fool of, so no one corrected her.

I thought for ages that a rent boy was a young male who ran errands for a landlord. Oh, and accidentally-on-purpose convinced myself that, in Rebel Without A Clue, Bonnie Tyler is singing 'take me where you're going, or maybe up the butt' instead of 'up above'...

"Good Friday" comes from a time when "good" was synonymous with "holy"

it's also called "Holy Friday" and indeed some people do call it "Black Friday"

An ex of mine once described himself as looking like 'the eppy- tome of style'. I couldn't bring myself to correct him on either count.

I used to think that the umbilical cord connected the belly buttons of the mum and baby. This was only rectified last year by my friends. Clearly, I'd been absent that day at school when this was explained! Now that I am pregnant, I'm just waiting for one of them to remember this and remind me of it...

I asked my parents on passing a sign maker shop when we were little 'what's a illuminated fack-i-ass?
The word, of course, was facias!

Also a friend of mine, which will out me completely if she reads these two stories together! Asked her DH when she was filling out a form, 'are we in europe?' (uk)

I used to think "Anon" was a very prolific poet, as a lot of the poems in my childhood anthology were written by him

We used to call the little ulcers that you get on your tongue "Elsie's" because I'd once pronounced it wrong when I was little. My younger sister missed out on the genesis of this little family quirk and it wasn't until she was about 22 and in the pub with a load of mates and said 'I've got an Elsie' that she was put right...

Also had a long discussion with my DH re-educating him about basic anatomy. He thought that the small intestine made your wee and your large intestine made your poo.

I on the other hand have never ever ever done anything worth posting on this thread.... [blushes]

On my first trip to Scotland with my then boyfriend (now DH) to his hometown we drove through a small village and I made a dumb comment that I thought 'twenty's plenty' was a stupid name for a village oh well, he still married me

I used to think that the tide went out because someone had pulled the plug out, like in a bath or sink! Thought this until I was 7 or 8! Also said "amimals" and "in a mimit"

I thought that Budapest and Bucharest were the same city, just with different translations. Turns out they're the capitals of two different countries.

I also never made the connection that when a scientist wanted (for example) to use a cancer-curing drug on a rat, they would be the ones to give the rat cancer in the first place. I guess I thought that there was an advert for rat owners to bring their ill pets in.

Apparently rats with genetic defects are much more expensive than their "normal" counterparts.

This thread is truly deserving of its classic status! It's got me through a bout of insomnia tonight.

My DH believed until he was about 15 that women do not poo.

My mum thought the main line from the Lady Gaga song is "cherry pie, cherry pie, no he can't read my poker face".

A friend of DH's sister thought that after you give birth they put the placenta back in, in case the woman had another baby that needed to use it. She was pregnant at the time.

I'm sure I have loads of my own but can't think of any new ones because I probably don't even realise they are wrong

Though I will admit to the strombolise/strong beliefs lyric. Didn't realise that until I read this thread. Although goodness knows what I though a strombolise was.

What a brilliant read during a night time feed!
I thought that Paddington station was named after the bear.

I've loved reading this!

Ok - I was 22 when I found out that Dinosaurs definitely existed - until then I thought it was "one of many possibilities."

Was reading on Facebook a few weeks back that someone's friends daughter was doing summer salts on the trampoline.

I only recently found out that cherry blossom trees produced cherries and apple blossoms produced apples. I thought it was a reference to the colour of the petals when they are flowering.

When I went to the US in 1966 I saw the word "pizza" for the first time, and pronounced it "pizz-uh". I mean, why not?

I was taken to a Chinese restaurant, much against my will, and ordered an egg roll, under the impression it was something like an egg sandwich.

I thought a hamburger was made with ham - why else would it be called a hamburger? (To be fair, there was a restaurant in my home town that sold beefburgers.) I was also astonished to discover a cheeseburger had meat in it... I thought it was like a beefburger, but with cheese instead of beef.

For some time I found it odd that so many cricketers were called ODI Career.

My lightbulb moment was when it suddenly occurred to me that Public Weighbridge was not a town. I was 40 at the time! Also when I was in my thirties I asked my DH where the gas tower near our house had gone? I didn't realise they went up and down, even though I'd driven past it on my way to work for four years.

And I'm still not sure if its true that The Wizard of Oz changes from black and white to colour because that's when colour film was invented. I was telling a colleague this last year, when it occurred to me how ridiculous it sounded, but it's what my dad told me when I was little, and now I just don't know if its true!

I used to see a van parked up in the same road every week when we went to visit my grandparents, the van had shop fitters on the side, I used to think it read shop lifters and wondered why the police let them drive around in a van with shop lifters written on it.

My OH thought that "albeit' was pronounced "i'll-bite".

I still remember a friend at school being asked by a teacher how much her body would be worth if it was broken down into minerals / metals. Her reply was, "well it all depends if I sell my orgasms or not". Yup, she meant organs (I hope!)

My sister also used to sing " I am the Lord of the dance SET-TEE ". Our family preferred it so much to the right lyrics that we both had it as a hymn at our wedding, cue much gigging from the front pews when it came to the chorus.

Oh - and it took me until well in my teens to realise that that solicitors were not the same people who got into trouble for soliciting and that protestants and prostitutes weren't the same thing. I spent a very long time very confused about this

Oh yes poncypony I used to think the same thing about Bruges & Brussels

When DD1 was born, I expressed my surprise to DH about how big the placenta was. He told me that of course it was big, as the baby had been inside it. I tried to correct him, but he was so adamant I started to doubt myself and let it go.

This one isn't me, but I've just spotted it on a radio station's fb page:
"Can I request 'totally clips of the heart' for my boyfriend Mikey as he's just so nice..."

Unfortunately, I'm related to the person who came out with these little nuggets:

"When you contraceive a baby..."

"I have a speech imparchment!" (they don't)

"Oh your cat got hit by a car? How sad. Good job it's got another 8 lives though, isn't it?"

"If we're going to get pacific about things..." instead of specific

I do love this person immeasurably though!!

When I was very little I thought London was a different country.

I made a bit of a twat of myself at school when I was about 15, I didn't realise that "Auf Weidersehen" was German, I thought it was just something people said in Newcastle.

This thread is so funny!

Up until the age of 18 ish I used to think Euthanasia was youth in Asia. I kept wondering what the kids in Asia were up to this time...

I used to drive passed a sign every day going to work that read Clay Pigeon Shooting. I thought clay pigeons were a breed of pigeons and very much feathered birds.

I was play fighting with my OH and we always start with threats, i said I was going to STAVE his head in! He asked 'what did you say?' With a smile on his face! I knew then i got the saying wrong I was so embarrassed i had to play fight twice as rough to get over it
(I know now that the saying is 'stove your head in' but don't think I'll try that threat again)

My dds English teacher calls the main character in noughts and crosses stephy writes sephy but says stephy this is also apparently short for persephone ( purse eh phone)

Has anyone clarified the knee cap thing?

YES babies have kneecaps. They're not visible on x rays at birth because they're cartilaginous, which gradually ossify (become bone) as children age.

Until the Olympics I thought horses were involved in water polo too

When I was in school and studying geography, my dad told me Niagara Falls was switched off at night to save energy. I believed him until I went to the falls in my twenties, and learnt otherwise!!

At 28 it randomly dawned on me...cows don't actually give each other piggy backs!
(Grandparents had a farm when I was a child ... I must have been told that to avoid awkward questions when I was really young...and never questioned it)

not sure i should admit this, specially for my first post but...............having never heard the word common used for a park as a kid i thought it was - wombles of wimbledon, common are we. referring more to social status than park land

I'm another one who never connected people saying "all be it" with the word "albeit" and saying al-bay until last year. I'm 42 and absolutely cringing about it still 3 years later.

Until I moved to a German speaking country I thought Gesundheit was Japanese for "bless you"

My friend told me in all honesty after the Beckhams/champagne bottle rumour that the latest craze in Hollywood was "nasal sex". I totally believed him, but had no idea how you'd actually do it.

Same friend told me that all military personnel on exercise have to only use one piece of tracing paper to wipe their backsides. Fold it and tear the qtr piece, put your finger through the whole etc. My husband was in the army 24 years and wet himself when I asked if he had to he wet himself.

1 year later, not 3. Doh!

Our local park is known to all and sundry as "The Rec" as in recreation ground. Several years ago DS1 had a friend from another village over to play, and I asked the dad if he was ok with the boys going to the rec together unsupervised (they were about 9 at the time). He ummed and ahhed for a bit and then said he wouldn't really be happy with that as his son wasn't a strong swimmer!!! Apart from anything else, we live about 50 miles from the sea.....

When I was young and innocent I thought when you had sex the man inserted his penis and then just sort of lay there not moving for a while. Twas quite a shock to find out there was a motion involved.

Wally - just for you

What's nasal sex?

Fuck nose.

When i was 15/16 and doing a G.C.S.E in history, and the history teacher was always talking about the troops in the war.

I always thought troops were fences that went round the trenches.

At no point in any of my history lessons did the teacher say that troops were men!!!

No wonder i got a G grade in that subject

In the city I used to live in, there is a "gentlemans club" called ST1. Now the name is not very fetching for obvious reasons but I had friends who genuinely believed it was a play on STI's (why they think people would call a stip club STI, I don't know) It was, in fact, the first part of the post code. The owners obviously didn't think it through! Epic fail on both sides!

Until I moved to England, when I heard on the irish news about people fighting 'in the north', I had an image in my head of people shooting from behind igloos.
My dp thinks children inherit their genes from the dominant parent - I've told him I'll be taking the science homework duties when it's time.
A friend told me peanuts were a type of fungus.
Another told me that you can't pour a bucket of water down the toilet, cos the toilet out pipe doesn't open up unless you flush using the handle.

My friend always said 'mummycuddled' for mollycoddled.

When I told her what it was she said it didn't make any sense that way so she carries on saying it her way

I was at university and said I wanted my hot chocolate with no throff. Everyone fell about laughing and even now (10 years later) I avoid saying froth as I still mix it up in the mind.
I recently discovered I have my dad to blame for this, and he can't hear the difference between the words!

Also only learnt that the expression is not 'as dull as dishwater' a couple of years ago...,,think this is better than the real expression though.

My sister told me if you cried for too long you could get dehydrated...I believed it for YEARS! She obviously wanted me to stop crying one time she'd done something mean to me.

Nicknamefail, my dad's the same. We also have to be careful to lock all the doors in case of 'fieths'

I thought ponies were baby horses and that they'd grow up to be proper horses.

I found out last year the truth. I'm 30.

My dad used to think that the way a baby ate in the womb was just opening it's mouth and catching the food that dropped down that my mother would eat.
He also asked why scuba divers couldn't just take a hose down to breath through instead of all these air tanks etc....
I have a childhood friend who asked why my newborn didn't smile much in pictures...he thought they came out able to smile on command.
My DH thinks if you have freckles you are born with them.
Another childhood friend asked why i keep cutting DD's hair so short (she is nearly 2 but is a baldy).

I thought the song band of gold was by a band called 'free the pain'

and I thought the sayings were:

'that's put the knockers on it' ( mockers )
and '...like a damp squid' ( squib )
both of these were my mums fault, obviously from a really intelligent family

MrsGrowbag, I remember getting worried when my best friend announced we were going to the rec for a while before tea, because I didn't have my swimming costume. I was very relieved to be led into a large empty field to play, rather than the recreation centre I was expecting.

Crocodilehunter, I'm sure you'll never see this, but 'stave' is correct. Stave is an old word for staff (or cudgel), and can be a verb as well, meaning to break or crush. Stove should be the past tense.

www.thefreedictionary.com/stave

Jaywalking is when you cross the street in a random place, not at a designated crosswalk or at the corner. It's one of these ancient laws that are on the books and used (by the police) to catch people on a slow day, like spitting on the sidewalk, etc.

I know this is an old thread, but my sister-in-law's sister thought oral sex was just talking about it

My DH fully believes that werewolves and vampires exist....

He won't listen to me when I say its all rubbish...he also thinks dragons were are real...I only wish I was joking...let's hope our children get their intelligence from me and not him or they are going to seriously embarrass themselves when they're older!

Well, this isn't quite the same but I will never forget the time when I had my first proper date with DH.

I told him that I had met the Pope, he asked me where and I replied with "Outside Asda" he looked at me for ages then started questioning me and I swore blind I met the Pope outside Asda when I went for some celebration that we were invited to with my quit smoking group.

It took me ages to remember I was getting the Pope mixed up with the Lord Mayor He never lets me live that down.

It's my fault really but my ds is nearly two and not speaking much yet so he uses some makatin signs he's picked up from mr tumble, today he heard the icecream van coming got giddy and when he heard the music start signed "all gone" looked dissapointed and walked off.
I was joking a while ago that when they play the music they've run out, damn you Jason manford!
I suppose it'll be cheaper in the long run lol

When I was a little kid I pronounced 'souvenir' as 'sovven year'. I was told that wasn't how you said it so I called it 'sou-ven-year'. Took a while to get it correct afterwards. I also thought 'washing line' was 'wash me lion' and a 'lounger' was a 'lunjer'. 'Gloves' were 'glubs'

I asked my dad how electric windows worked in the car and he told me there was a cable under the road which sent power through the tyres. I believed him for a while.

A friend of mine worked in a superstore with me. She told me that someone had asked where the 'elbow grease' was and she couldn't find it... she later realised she'd been had. On the same night she was asked where the 'sugar free sweets' were and she said 'hah! very funny!' to the presumably surprised customer.

BudgieGirlBob the change from black and white to colour in The Wizard of Oz is to show the contrast from boring regular Kansas where Dorothy lived (black & white) to the magical wonderful world of Oz (colour).
When she eventually wakes up from her dream/unconsciousness/returns from Oz, the film reverts back to black and white as she is back in Kansas.

I was absolutely convinced that Matt Perry from Friends and Luke Perry from the original 90210 were brothers.

Oh, and that the Beegees were in charge of all other popstars because I once saw them in gold, shiny cat suits in the 80s (?!).

Up until the age of 16 I though God made the earth. Couldn't understand how it got here otherwise.

Until this year I didn't realise yellow dandelions and dandelion clocks were the flower and seeds of the same plant. I think I thought they were different varieties that just happened to grow together.

The hymn book we used in church when I was a child had the year of birth and death of the author beside each hymn. For years I thought this was how long it took them to write the hymn. That was an embarassing conversation!

Ok, please help me avoid making a fool of myself: a friend commented on how clever the word play in Peppa Pig can be, like "Madam Gazelle" / mademoiselle. Another one said, "Yes, I've only just got that. Like "Grandpa in my pocket"." ok, I should have asked there and then what they meant by Grandpa, but I didn't. Can anyone enlighten me?

I thought the Wombles of Wimbledon were common

Me too Horry! My DH still takes the piss when talking about "type 2 dandelions".... Git

Until recently I used the term 'Head Poncho' instead of Honcho - nobody ever corrected me.

I thought the lyrics to Band Aid were "Fever, woaah" ... until about 3 yrs ago when DH corrected me, he still finds this hilarious.

A guy at work thought the words to A town called Malice were "Animal House" which barely even fits?

Also that is brand new info re: dandelions!