I was today years old when I realised.......

[cwtchesandprosecco]

What have you recently realised that’s made you feel like a bit of an idiot?

Mine is that I didn’t know you shouldn’t flush tampons down the toilet...... I swear I remember my mother telling me I could when I first started using them, and that’s what I’ve done for 14 years! It was only through a conversation with a friend (about whether you empty your bathroom bin before the cleaner comes.....) and subsequent google that I’ve found out you shouldn’t.....

So, what have you have you learnt recently that you definitely should have known before?

@5lilducks

Until my early thirties I thought Sherlock Holmes was real..My then dp(now dh) said "you do realise Sherlock Holmes is not real right" when I asked him if "Sherlock Street" was where Sherlock actually lived 🤦‍♀️

Erm, that would be 221B Baker Street...

I had no idea. I guess that makes me today years old.

Eh? Everyone is "today years old"...^

Why on earth would a saying telling people to be polite be connected to pub serveries or printing presses?

Sometimes the obvious answer is the obvious one...

I was a proper grown-up before I realised that Russia and the USA are actually really close together - obviously when you look on a world map they are on opposite sides...

@nestlestealswater

I also recently discovered when you snap your fingers, it's not the "snap" of your fingers that makes the noise. It's your middle finger hitting your palm.

When I read this I literally didn't believe you now I'm sat watching my fingers snap like a total twat!

Me too! Love your username too. Are you from Buxton by any chance?

We had a Special Meeting For All The Girls when I was in what is now year 8, when one of the middle-aged female teachers told us all not to put towels and tampons down the loo (and told us of the time she'd blocked her toilet by flushing disposable nappies "fortunately it was obvious what they were" )

That would have been 1981ish, so manufacturers and authorities have been at loggerheads for quite some time.

The Q's in "P's and Q's" are from "Thank you's". Just never really thought about it before until I heard someone say it yesterday.

Haven’t RTFT so apologies if this has been said, but the above isn’t true. The exact origin of the phrase isn’t known. It might be a reference to children learning the alphabet, or to minding ‘pints and quarters in a pub’. Please and thank you is one possible explanation, but the true origin isn’t known.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_your_Ps_and_Qs

@Therainisback thanks! Not far from Buxton, although I live overseas now just my little way of raising awareness of the Nestle boycott!

That it’s

Lefty LOOSEY - not Lefty Lucy

I’ve always thought it was

Lefty Lucy, Righty Tighty

I was shooketh when I read the correct version recently

DH was reading in bed a few months ago and turned to me and grabbed my arm. He said he had just read the most amazing thing about cuckoos and proceeded to tell me how they lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. I burst out laughing and told him that was the only thing anyone knows about cuckoos.

[quote nestlestealswater]@Therainisback thanks! Not far from Buxton, although I live overseas now just my little way of raising awareness of the Nestle boycott![/quote]
Not Canada by any chance?

"I was today years old" is possibly the most irritating turn of phrase - even more than "I could care less".

@Claudia84

That segue is not pronounced seeeeg

I know this but I still read it as seeg. And when I hear someone say it I 'see' it written as segway in my head.

I was 21 when I read Harry Potter and read the female character's name as Her-mee-oh-knee. Was a few years till I saw the films and realised, but I still read it my way in my head!

@Fossie, I thought the same. Ie. Common as in there’s lots of them.

@Therainisback excellent, hello fellow Nestle anti-fan!!

I recently only realized Humpty Dumpty was an Egg not a POTATO!!!!! Omg, my shock and horror when the realisation sank in!!!! Wtf......lol....

It was only in the last few years, I'm 50-odd, that I realised a Private Ambulance transports dead bodies, and not live patients to private hospitals. I did always wonder why they always looked so grim.

I love some of these! And I’ve learnt a few things

@MintLampShade

Mid 30s here and I just learnt that you are not meant to wash your face in the shower with hot water...but I can't help myself. It feels wrong not to wash my face whilst showering!!

As long as you splash your face with cold water afterwards you'll be fine. It's only because the hot water opens your pores up. Then again I never splash mine with cold water afterwards and I rarely get spots and I've never ever had a blackhead

@MoonCatcher they do transport live people. I know someone who was taken from England to Scotland by private ambulance, paid for by the NHS.

I've managed to wash my face with hot water for over 50 years without it becoming "problematic", I suspect this is just one of those pointless things women are told to keep them worrying about things that really don't matter.

I learned in my late twenties that not all palm trees are coconut trees. This was after I had already lived in the tropics for three years and assumed that all the coconutless trees I saw had had their coconuts taken away to stop them falling on pedestrians' heads.

I was embarassingly old when I realised that 'Arkansas' and 'Arkansas (pronounced Arkinsaw)' were actually the same place.

Not today but recently (and I’m proper old)

Chimney is not pronounced chimley

I’m from Newcastle and I was pretty old when I realised (1) that all my life I’d heard people call children “bens” but the word was actually “bairns”, and therefore (2) Benelyn wasn’t special kids’ medicine.