What do you remember from your childhood that you now realise you really misunderstood?

When a boy in my P2 class asked if I knew what a condom was I said no.

he said it was something to put on a willy. I had visions of a COLANDER attached to the area

My enigma with “there is a Green hill far away” is: why is the hill green, in a desert country? See also “snow on snow” in the bleak midwinter.

Had lunch with family today and mentioned a couple of comments from this thread. When I said 'Alice the camel' my brother misheard and said 'Alistair Campbell?' 😃

9/10 yr old me, bumping up my dishy 16/17 cousin in the park, early 70s, arms around his girlfriends waist, his blonde shaggy feather cut hair , cheese cloth shirt, tight flared loons, god he was gorgeous, I also noticed a large bulge in his pants, I decided that it was because he was probably wearing a condom because, you know, boy periods.

We were told it was the angels in heaven moving their furniture around.

In the shop once, my then 7ish yr old daughter, pointed to the Mr Kipling's and said she wanted them " French fankies". She's mid 40s now, I still think of them pronounced that way.

This just unlocked a 30 year old memory!

Me and my friend when we were about 10 decided to try smoking - so we got a piece of A4, rolled it up, lit one end and inhaled through the other. To be honest we couldn't see the appeal!

Man, I wish that was how those places worked. You could have bobsleigh runs to get down to the bottom and chairlifts to get back up.

When I was five/six I had to stay overnight in hospital for a morning procedure (would be purely day case now). When they announced it was suppertime, I ran back to my bed and pulled the bed table towards me - because that is how pictures always showed people in hospital eating supper. I remember feeling embarrassed when they told me it would be served at the table instead.

Mum and dad went shopping to a ‘freezer centre’ where ‘the whole place is a freezer’
I thought they would have to climb up a massive ladder and lift the lid up on top of the building to get in, like a two storey chest freezer 😮

I ran home and excitedly informed my family that I was in the "G-nomees" brownies group, instead of Gnomes, I was miffed when they all laughed.

The BBC message boards (back in day) automodded any post that spelled Fuchsia correctly for years.

Wow... I hope he didn't fix it for your friend. Pieces of works, those guys!

I read a lot as a child and it was a long time before I realised they didn’t serve horse’s doofers at posh dinner parties. (hors d’oeuvres)

I can recall being in chapel and the vicar saying’ at we dwell in the house of the Lord forever’
I thought we’d have to stay forever! And I just wanted to go home! So I sat there quietly crying. Stopped once outside and could go home!

You did understand the concept, it was just that you maybe didn't know ALL the possibilities, and had not heard the words spoken aloud.

I remember being in the car once and one of my older sisters said "ha, look, someone's put an I in the middle of the To Let sign"

I wasn't quick enough to see for myself, and spent quite some time wondering why anyone would draw an eye on the sign and why sis thought it was funny

I'm another one who read misled as mizle-d, but I had an extra layer: I knew what it meant, and I knew what mis-led meant, and I just didn't connect the two.

Hyperbole to rhyme with superbowl, obviously. aw-ree as well.

I read a Jean Plaidy novel which talked about Lucy Walter dying from something that often affected those that had lived her way of life. I assumed she was exhausted from all the travelling.

Same here 🤦🏼‍♀️

I have only just realised this after reading your post!

My Dad told me it was God moving the coffins around 😱

That 'L, M, N, O, P' were letters of the alphabet, not some weird noise in the middle of a song 'ellemenopee'

That the little pig wasn't actually going shopping at the market

When I was 5 I went for tea at my new friend’s house. Her mum dished up much bigger portions than my mum ever did, and I just couldn’t finish all the fish fingers.

Looking at the left over fish fingers on my plate, her mum said to me ‘there are children starving in Africa you know’. So I thought, ‘that’s quite good that I left some for them, then’. And couldn’t understand why she kept saying it more and more crossly. I mean I could hardly un-eat the ones I’d already had, could I?!

Daft saying anyway 😂

What does this mean?

A lot of adults still get confused by this, even more so now....

A little macabre, at age 6 I asked what a coffin was and was told it was a box. 6 year old me thought boxes were cube shaped and envisaged people being rolled up to fit in them....a few months later I made friends with a boy in my class whose dad was an undertaker and the first time I went round his house for tea, we walked from school to his dad's shop and I saw coffins, which relieved my mind a lot. My new friend's older brothers then terrified me with stories of ghosts over tea.