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

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

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')

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

'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!

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.

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

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.

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

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" ?

LadyClarice, did you ask someone?

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

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.

Oh that song takes me back Thumbwitch !

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!

LadyClarice hahahahaha - priceless!

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

Am crying here LadyClarice!

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!

I thought HMV stood for Her Majesty's Videos.

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 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 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" :o

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

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.

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!