Random facts you have only recently discovered

[fandabbyfannyflutters]

I found out only yesterday you are not allowed to take photos of the Eiffel Tower at night...mind totally blown

Farlington and Cosham WISH they were Portsmouth!

Anyone else humming and holding their nostrils shut now? :D

Mind blown! That and hootenanny.

Speaking of phrases that look the same when they are said..

This illusion will blow your mind.

Is wales an island? I know you have to go over a bridge to get there but is is connected by land to England at all?

WTF??? How does anyone not know that if they live anywhere in the UK?

Are you confusing it with Anglesea?

I was super shocked the day I found out that Barry Scott in the advert is played by a man called Neil Burgess - why not just call him Neil Burgess???!!!!

@poptypingchef wtf!

@poptypingchef whuuuuut?!

PrincessHoneysuckle - course I HAD to go and practice that...and who discovered that fact and why??

And no such thing as WHITEBAIT?!? Wait whut?!🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

isthisit42 The largest desert in the world is the Antarctic!

Well, yes, I know that now. After grasping what the concept of a desert is. But actually I cottoned on to that in the context of the Atacama Desert which is half-way up a bloody mountain (and the camels would fall off ).

For the person saying you can't hum with your mouth open - you can. When your lips are closed the sound diverts through your nose. Your tongue might be in a few different positions when you do this. If for example it habitually sits in an "ng" position when you hum, the sound won't change whether your mouth is open or closed, because the tongue is preventing the exit of the sound through your mouth further back. But if your tongue isn't fully sealing the oral exit, the sound will change from a hum to some kind of vowel.

As you were..!

@chomalungma there are so many things I don’t know so I’m not making a judgment but I was taught that mercury is the closest planet in primary school too- 30 years ago.
Learnt with the pneumonic
: MY Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets.

Since then we now know Pluto isn’t a planet as such

Look at Madagascar on a world map or globe. It's about twice the size of the UK. But has less than half the population......

But Biggie in your pneumonic it says Venus is closer than Mercury!

Mercury Venus Earth Mars....

I think the possessive 's' comes from his.
In old writing I have seen eg "John Brown his cousin"
meaning John Brown's cousin

I'm not 100% sure it is true. And why would we use 's in place of her?

I think the possessive 's' comes from his.

I'd heard that... so I've been googling and have therefore just now discovered it's from the old English genitive inflection -es. It had also never occurred to me before that 'possessive' is something of a misnomer - in your example, John Brown doesn't possess his cousin.

"That Glasgow is in Scotland not Ireland....I know" as a weegie - Good grief! Where are you from?!

That said I remember watching an episode of mastermind where a contestant didn't know the secc was in glasgow! I think he said London!

"Regarding finger-clicking...remember that trick Eric Morecambe used to do, pretending to catch something in a paper bag? He did it by clicking the fingers that were holding the bag. It sounds exactly like something landing in the bag. I tried it and it works. Hours of fun!" Didn't your dad or granda or similar eve play that trick on you?

Re food ads - I really think using plastic food, Pva glue etc should be banned it's very misleading

I had a recent "d'oh" moment as despite being obsessed with etymology and name meanings it had escaped me that sawyer of course means "one who saws" - a "saw-er" discovered via a completely unrelated tv show!

It wouldn't be in the spirit of the thread to name names, but some of the 'blind spots' people have are incredible! (No doubt I have many of my own as well, so no judgment from me).

I certainly wasn't taught that Mercury was the closest planet to Earth in primary school, and judging by google it's only been in the last couple of years that this fact has started to be reported / shared. Even NASA still state that Venus is the closest planet to Earth. I wonder if some of the people claiming to be incredulous that this isn't known because they were taught it in primary school are looking at the mnemonics and mixing up Mars and Mercury?

I love that planet pneumonic!! Learn something new every day, thanks Mumsnet

@PrincessHoneysuckle and @HalfManHalfLabrador - I KNOW!!??? I don’t know who to trust any more 😂😂😂

The back of your hand whilst clenched is the size of your heart!

@Biggie123

here are so many things I don’t know so I’m not making a judgment but I was taught that mercury is the closest planet in primary school too

You were taught that Mercury is the closest planet to the SUN. I am saying that Mercury is the closest planet to EARTH - so the lovely mnemonic you were taught is irrelevant here. In fact, people who learnt that mnemonic would assume that either Venus or Mars was closest to the Earth.

@Biggie123

MY Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets

Yes - and I said that MERCURY is closest to EARTH.

The Mercury thing is interesting because it’s obvious once you think about it, but almost everyone never actually thought about it. I listened to the More or Less thing and then asked DH “what’s the nearest planet to the Sun on average?” and he knew that I wouldn’t have asked if the answer was obvious so worked out pretty much immediately that it must be Mercury. But neither of us in a century of watching / reading about astronomy had ever heard it stated before.