Pineapples don't grow on trees and other misconceptions that MN has revealed over the years

[DadDadDad]

To celebrate that Chat threads will no longer disappear after 90 days, I thought I'd honour that with something that's been a MN staple over the years: curious facts that apparently came as a surprise to some people.

Sad person that I am , I've kept a note of some of these over the years. I won't paste them all into this first post, but feed them in over time assuming anyone shows the slightest interest. Please add your own...

The following are all TRUE. In some cases, you may think "so what?", but remember each one has come up because a MNetter found it surprising or even BELIEVED SOMETHING CONTRADICTORY

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Places

The Channel Tunnel passes through the bedrock underneath the sea, it's not sitting in a tube resting on the seabed.

Edinburgh is further west than Liverpool and Bristol.

Portsmouth is on an island off the British mainland. Gibraltar is not an island.

Casablanca is in North Africa (Morocco).

Timbuktu is a real place (in Mali, Africa).

Dunkirk is in France (not Scotland) - maybe the film will now have got everyone up to speed on that one .

Budapest and Bucharest are different cities.

County Durham is in NE England (County Down is in N Ireland).

Tripoli is in Libya.

The place you hear as 'Arkinsaw' is written 'Arkansas'.

Ahahahahah yes these are hilarious.

I'm not the only one to have once thought Centre Parcs were under a giant dome, Simpsons movie-style thanks to the power of that early advert.

That tampons should not be flushed down the toilet. It's something I learnt on MN and checked out in disbelief but still can't get my head round.

And you've just taught me something new re Edinburgh being further west!

Words

'misled' is pronounced 'mis - led'

'segue' is pronounced 'seg - way'

It's called 'hang-gliding' (not 'hand-')

Big lorries are called 'artics' (short for articulated), nothing to do with 'arctic'

The expression is "you've got another think coming", although "thing" is a common mis-hearing.

Is bologne the sandwich meat that's pronounced baloney?? Lol.

Loving these.

Keep em coming!

i always thought Dunkirk was in Scotland until the movie! hangs head in shame

Your fingernails do not continue to grow after you die dehydration of the body after death causes retraction of the skin around the nails, giving the illusion that they have grown.

The capital of Australia is Canberra, not Sydney

I should have said I love these threads in the spirit of the joy of learning new things, not mocking anyone's ignorance. A relevant cartoon... (the UK equivalent would be 2000 people per day).

Source: xkcd.com/1053/

This should look better

Once a banana tree has produced bananas

That’s it

It doesn’t produce more

So yes, we have no bananas is very true

Can’t get my head around Edinburgh being further west than Liverpool..it’s on the east side of the country ffs,

Australia has snow, lots of it, morte than some European countries that are ski destinations.

Not all of Australia is hot, Tasmania gets the same weather as the UK with the exception of snow.

Sir Edmund Hillary, the guy who climed Everest waas a Kiwi not a Briton.

Prince Harry's real name is Henry.

We've had sandwich meat and bananas, and funnily enough the next slice of pie facts I had lined up was...

Food

Capers are buds from a plant (not a fish - are you thinking of anchovies?)

Pineapples grow on low bushes.

Raisins come from grapes.

Gherkins are a type of cucumber that has been pickled.

@Dowser - I think your banana fact may be slightly misleading.

Wikipedia has this sentence: After fruiting, the pseudostem dies, but offshoots will normally have developed from the base, so that the plant as a whole is perennial.

So a part of the plant usually survives to develop a new fruiting part the following year.

I posted a while ago about pineapples actually eating you back - I'm still gobsmacked by it!

I see a lot of ones on here which aren’t actually correct:

Babies don’t have kneecaps (yes they do!)

The numbers on a toaster are minutes, not arbitrary toastiness (only on some brands, #notalltoasters)

That Walkers swapped the colour of their crisps packets round some time in the 1980s (no they didn’t)

@AlrightBabby I was about to mention your cannibal Pineapple post LOL!

Horses don't die if they lie down.
(Apparently lots of us thought that after reading an Enid Blyton, Mallory Towers book)

Narwhals are real creatures and can never be kept in captivity

I read the cannibal pineapples post in shock not so long ago
There was something else about bananas on that thread too that boggled me (although clearly not that much because I've forgotten )

Tell me about the cannibal pineapples, please!

Pineapples naturally contain bromine which is an enzyme

This means that whilst you are eating the pineapple, the enzyme is breaking down you and starting to digest you!!

Obviously not a whole lot but that’s why your lips tingle when you eat pineapple

Can someone please share a link to the cannibal pineapples....this I have to read

Halloween is an American import to the U.K. - nope the Scots and the Irish have been celebrating it for a long, long time.

“Santa” is an American import - nope Scottish again.

“Gotten” is an American import - nope (you’ll be shocked) it’s used in spoken Scottish English (and other U.K. dialects)

If you use Received Pronunciation you have “no accent” - nonsense you just have an RP accent. It might be an historically higher status accent but it’s still just an accent.

The enzyme in pineapple is bromelain.
Bromine is an element.

Bananas dont grow on trees, but herbaceous plants, they are herbs.