What stupid things have you believed/said/assumed before finding out to your embarrassment you were wrong?

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!

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

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.

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.

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."

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

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 :o

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.

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.

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"

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

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]

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

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 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...

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.

"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"

I thought for ages that a rent boy was a young male who ran errands for a landlord. [bublush] 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'...

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

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 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.

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

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!!!

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'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...