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'.

The pineapple thing makes it a good low level cure for mild sore throats

nonsense you just have an RP accent. It might be an historically higher status accent but it’s still just an accent.

It was the accent chosen by the BBC when it first started broadcasting, it was thought to be the accent understood by most people.

The Army still trains Geordies as radio operatives as it is is dificult for enemy armies to understand, as on ex squadie said to me, "stick two of them talking to each other on a radio and no f**r knows what they are on about.

Bananas, the are a herb and can 'walk', they don't actually walk but as said upthread the banana dies back after fruiting but there are shoots that can grow into a 'tree', as they are not in exactly the same spot it gives the appearance of banana trees moving over time.

In WWII a group of soldiers got stuck in a forrest/jungle somewhere in Asia (I can't remember details) but they found a pineapple grove o survived for weeks, maybe months, but they all lost their teeth due ot the pineappple enzymes.

New fun fact, all babies are born with a hole in the heart, it normally sloses within days but can still be used to give cardiologists access to both atria to measure pressures and oxygenation.

Oh and blood is red. IT IS NOT BLUE, whichever teacher in Coventry is telling kids this you are wwrong and cutting oneself is not oxydation.

Sash interesting I hadn’t heard that about the army and Geordies before.

It’s actually ‘fine-toothed comb’, not ‘fine toothcomb’. I don’t care how fine it is, why would anyone need a comb for their teeth??

A few more...

Nature

Ducks can fly.

Seahorses, narwhals, wolves are real animals living today.
(I see Soubriquet anticipated this one).

Lions and tigers are completely different species (tigers are not female

lions etc)

Yes, there are people in this world who thought / think seahorses and wolves are mythical creatures akin to dragons and unicorns. But as I said before I'm not mocking them too much ...

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

Santa Claus is an American corruption of the Dutch Sinterklaas. I'm happy to be corrected, but I'm pretty sure there's no historical connection to Scotland.

On the babies' kneecaps, web says they have cartillage only, and it doesn't entirely become bone until much later (all the way to adulthood). So this might hinge on what exactly you mean by kneecap.

A baby horse is not a pony. It is a foal. A friend's daughter explained this to me. She was 7 . I didn't like to ask what a baby pony was called...

Under-pitch heating isn't there to keep the footballers warm

The word is remunerate, not renumerate
(I thought numerate - something to do with numbers therefore made sense)

“I didn't like to ask what a baby pony was called...”

Also a foal.

Ponies and horses aren’t really different things, well they are if you go all complicated, but the easy version is ponies are horses under a set height (as adults).

Not actually one MN but I recently found out that kidney transplants don't replace the existing kidneys. They add a new one.

*on

@sashh who the fuck told you that about Geordies and the army? Load of bollocks.

Oh I really wanted the Geordies in the army one to be true!

Sorry if this has been said, there is a Dunkirk in Kent between Faversham and Canterbury

I wonder if the Geordies one is a joke that someone started to come up with a British version of the US code-talkers, who were real: native Americans who used languages that outsiders would be unlikely to understand. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker

I always thought Pontefract was in Wales, until we passed through it one day on the way to somewhere else, West Yorkshire, not even nearly Wales! No idea why I thought that.

Comms systems have moved on! We don't need accents to stop the Russians listening.

There are Geordies all over the army, no special place for them in comms or signals. I'm sharing a room with one now & she's definitely not into communications...

I know what you mean about Pontefract. Billericay should also be in Ireland.

I am constantly bemused when I watch a weather forecast as, in my head, Stornaway is definitely in Northern Ireland

Could the Pontefract being in Wales one be because it's similar to Pontypridd?

And Dunkirk in Scotland because it's similar to Dunfermline/Falkirk???

I am still astounded that mammoths still existed on earth when the first pyramids were being built

Lol’ing at everything being Scottish. It’s like my big fat Greek wedding

But hold up: Portsmouth is an island wtf? How have I got there without crossing water then?

The cats' eyes in the road don't have little lightbulbs inside them.

Possibly I am the only person who ever thought this