Lighthearted: Have you only just realised something is infact not what you thought?

[coffeehabit]

Didn't quite know how to title this but:

I have always thought the second hand on a clock was, like, first and second. Only just found out it means the seconds..... I'm 52.....

What seemingly obvious things have you only just realised are infact not what you thought?

Sunburn is awful! I suspect a lot of people don't think of it as a "real" burn but as a redhead raised in the 70's by parents who thought I was being a pain by not wanting to spend an entire day in summer sun with no protection beyond the odd suggestion to "well sit in the shade then!" It absolutely is real! And bloody painful!

In the heatwave in (I think) 1976 I was very badly burnt pretty much all over and parents did feel bad about that at the time but the following summer straight back to "Suns good for you get outside and don't come in till we call you"

They and my siblings have completely different complexion to mine and rarely burn.

Thanks Graphista, you've made me feel better. Sorry you got so burned though!

For everyone who needs a giggle!
Aerosmith - Love in an elevator
The words are "Jackie's in the elevator"
Not "shagging in the elevator"
facepalm

As a child I thought people bought car boots at a car boot sale. Don't know what I thought a car boot was...

Thanks glad I helped.

@RedForShort

That's not what it means. Swings and roundabouts means that either action you take will have no better or worse result than the other. They are equal.

Like if you can take 2 different roads to get to a shop. Both take the same length of time. Both are the same difficult to drive. And you ask someone for an opinion on which road to take, they could say "It's swings and roundabout". Basically means there is no material difference between the 2 options.

*difficulty to drive

The toaster thing makes no sense. It takes time to make the toast go brown, so whatever unit of measurement the dial is referring to, it's essentially minutes.

How can this be surprising? It's like being surprised that the longer you cook an egg the harder it gets.

@MorrisZapp

No. On some toasters the 1 stands for 1 minute. The 2 stands for 2 minutes. The 3 stands for 3 minutes etc.

On other toasters, the 1 stands for light toast which takes (for ecample) 2 minutes
The 2 stands for medium toast (for example 3 minutes) and the 3 stands for really dark toast (for example, 4 minutes). On those toasters, the number on the disk does not equal the number of minutes. It equals the toastyness.

*toast time made up... I've no idea how long it actually takes for each level of toast!

I never believe a single word of these threads, apart from the things people believed as children. No adult is that dense.

Erm, my wonderful and usually smart daughter who has just sat her higher biology and physics.... told me this week that she thought when a female cat/dog is taken in to be sterilised that the vets removed their nipples

I've realised that I don't need to slam the car door when I shut it. It closes just as well with a gentle push (sorry neighbours).

The example of which road to take with them both being equal, would be better explained by the saying “Six of one and half a dozen of another”. That is that the the choices are equal.

The meaning of Swings and roundabouts is clearer when you use the complete saying which is “what you lose on the swings, you will gain on the roundabouts”. It means that over a series of choices or events, overall your outcome will be balanced or even.

When sayings get shorted over time, the meaning can become blurred, as it has for instance with “the proof is in the pudding” a frequently used but meaningless corruption of “The proof of the pudding lies in the eating”.

so whatever unit of measurement the dial is referring to, it's essentially minutes.

It's only minutes if it is, actually, minutes.

The unit of measurement might be 30 seconds. Or 45. Or 90. None of those is a minute.

No-one is disputing that the more units you set it to, the more it will toast. Just how long the unit lasts.

That jailhouse rock's words are about homosexuals as prisons are single sex. My husband pointed that out to me about 6 months ago.

I have a couple!

• Bulls aren't antagonised by the colour red. They are colourblind, it's the whipping noise and motion of the cape (plus perceiving the matador as a threat) that enrages them.

• The capital of Australia isn't Sydney, it's Canberra.

• Dogs sweat through their footpads.

Wasn't it on one of these that someone said until they were a teenager they thought a car was a female dog?

A cat not a car

Those who are embarrassed - be glad your misapprehension wasn’t pointed out to you on live radio as you were promoting a new book on the subject, as has just happened to Naomi Wolf

Probably everyone apart from me knew this already but my mind was blown recently when I discovered that yellow and red peppers are just more ripened green ones.

This one is a bit random and it is a misheard lyric so sorry pp who hates these.

I like the Ariana Grande song thank you, next. It's about her past relationships and in the song she thanks her ex partners, but says she is moving on in a great new relationship with a girl named Ari. I thought huh, I didn't know she was bi, and I expected to see her papped with this new female lover any time. I only just realised she is referring to herself! A great new relationship with herself!

The swings and roundabouts thing. Full saying is ‘what you lose on the swings, you’ll gain on the roundabouts’.

It’s a fairground thing. So if you charge for a ‘go’ on both, some days one will be more popular than the other but mostly it will even itself out.

Swings and roundabouts isn’t it!

"No adult is that dense." But clearly there are adults arrogant enough to think they know EVERYTHING

A Saxophone is a Woodwind instrument, not a Brass instrument. As explained to me by my six year old this evening! I was all astonishment...need to get out more.

Oh come on how would a person studying higher level biology think that a female animal has their nipples cut off in order to sterilize them?! Common sense and cop on clearly need to be taught at school