Can we have an "OMG I can't believe I never realised that!" thread?

[TwigTheWonderKid]

Mine is Sandie Shaw. I can't believe it had never occurred to me until tonight that her name is a play on Sandy Shore.

If you have too many dandelions you can make honey with them

In the Victorian (I think) times they were respected for their many uses of which I can’t remember what those are without looking it up

@Heismyopendoor
I've heard it as Bristol and Edinburgh before, which is definitely true. Cardiff is as far west. Look up the longitude of each place.
Bristol 2.6W
Edinburgh 3.2W
Cardif 3.2W

Roald Dahl wrote the screenplay for the movie of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

I just realised it you cut your thumb you can put a tea bag on it.
Well, if you cut your leg off you can put a tea bag on it...but what's it meant to do?

That tortoise skeleton is a revelation- I've just realised I didn't think tortoises were attached to their shell.

As for the person who didn't think birds could poo while flying - how has this never happened to you or to anyone you know??!

Changethepassword That's blown my mind! I also thought Lido Shuffle was by Elton John, it's the most 'Eltony' song I've heard.

I'm 35 and didn't know a male bird was called a drake

I remember Bloaters from my childhood in London .Always thought they were a fish in their own right .But My FIL told me that they are a herring partly smoked ,whereas a kipper is fully smoked .Never seem to see them now ,wonder if anyone else remembers them?

Scampy isn't fish at all? It's some sort of lobstery/prawny stuff, isn't it?

Sorry for the spelling error, it used to be, I think Dublin Bay prawns but there isn't anything that says it has to be so lots of it comes from places like vietnam and can be, well anything.

BTW, we all know about the snow in Australia don't we?

And that cities / towns with Chester or cester in were once roman forts?

Vertigo is nothing to do with a fear of heights. The connection comes because the sensation of vertigo - that feeling of dizziness, everything spinning around - is one that some people experience when they look down from a great height. When it's used to mean fear of heights, though, it's simply being used incorrectly.

As a child I thought one of the teams on University challenge sat on top of the other

I think the confusion with vertigo meaning fear of heights, is because Hitchcock named his film Vertigo.

AA Milne, of Winnie the Pooh fame, originally adapted Wind of the Willows for stage, naming it in Toad of Toad Hall (not the current musical version).

that we don't eat 'bumblebee' honey.

I only just realised that Cannon and Ball, Little and Large etc, were not their real names

However I can remember (when I was working) consulting research papers by two Professors - Duck and Pond (I think they were psychologists)

I am a well educated, fairly intelligent person BUT until this virus struck, I honestly thought the lungs were like empty paper bags that were inflated by air and not solid structures with various pockets and tubes etc! I thought if someone had part of a lung removed, they would snip the sack in half then sew it up at the bottom so it still inflated
What a moron!!

That Jeremy Clarkson’s mum created Paddington bear.

Artic lorries are not called ‘arctic’ lorries. Artic is short for articulated. I always though they were called arctic because they kept things cold inside.

The Rock and Vin Diesel are different people. I thought the Rock was Vin Diesel’s stage name.

Some friends were talking about the musical Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. I was a bit sniffy about someone writing a musical about a serial killer - how would his victims’ descendants feel? Er, there aren’t any, because he was a fictional character....

But (while checking that just now, in case I’d made another mistake) I found I’m not the only one:
www.independent.co.uk/news/media/sweeney-todd-fact-or-fiction-6112800.html

Ok I’ve scanned the thread twice and must be missing it - what don’t I know about the Channel Tunnel?

My OH didn't know that the chickens you eat are nearly always girl chickens.

I thought Haiti was pronounced Ha-ee-tee, I was amazed when I heard it pronounced Hay-tee! Blew my mind.

what don’t I know about the Channel Tunnel?

I think some people think that the tunnel goes along the bottom of the channel so is surrounded by water, rather than below the seabed and through the rock.

I always though they were called arctic because they kept things cold inside.

The ones that keep things cold are "reefers" (short for refridgerated.)

I've always been good a geography, knowledge of other countries, etc, but about 2 years ago I found out that Madagascar has a population of over 26 MILLION people. I had absolutely no idea. Obviously, I knew people lived there, but no clue it was that many. My mind was blown

Mine has now, as well ! I had to look it up - and not only do I know people who have been there on holiday, we considered it when planning a trip to Southern Africa.

I learnt on MN a few years back that if you tie laces in a double bow, you can undo it like a normal bow (I always undid the second knot, then undid as normal) what?? Surely not. Then what is the point of a double bow?

My OH didn't know that the chickens you eat are nearly always girl chickens.

That's because the boys are thrown (alive) into a choppy-up machine almost as soon as they are hatched, when their sex is determined.

And I have just realised that fridge gains a rogue d when you abbreviate it from refrigerator. Never noticed that until my typo in the above post!