Things you have just found out that have blown your mind.

[Strictlyfanoftenyears]

I have just found out that the "sticky backed plastic" on Blue Peter was actually "sellotape" but they werent allowed to advertise it. How did I not know this?🤔

I was well into adulthood, before I realised 'Morph' was called Morph because he ' metamorphosised' .

Just thought it was a silly name.

This was on pointless a few weeks ago.
The contestant DEFINITELY said tenderhooks, and the presenter said tenterhooks, is tenterhooks on there...... Yes!

I was shouting at the screen she said TENDER she shouldn't get it, she said the WRONG WORD.

I may have been slightly overinvested.

tenterhooks by the way were literally little hooks on a frame. You stretched something on to the hooks to dry - wool? leather? can't remember and so being stretched taut (with eg excitment) is being on tenterhooks.

My OH thinks it hilarious to shout " I can see you" when we see it above

Orchids grow on trees.

Find me someone that doesn't do the same when passing the Secret Nuclear Bunker 😂

This! This is what I've always thought. It's a lovely, soothing ending, not death-bed hallucinations or afterlife or any other ideas you MONSTERS have! It's Iggle Piggle FGS- leave him ALONE. You'll be after Flop in a minute.

It really wasn't

sticky tape = sellotape and
stickly back plastic is sheets of coloured plastic like fablon.

they really are 2 different things, and Blue Peter used 2 different words for them.

The hole in a pasta spoon is so you can measure out a single serve of spaghetti/linguine – any long pasta.

stenterhooks and tenterhooks are not the same.

a frame of tenterhooks was used to stretch dry something. I THINK it was wool. It was a cottage industry, houses had a tenter frame outside, washed whatever it was and then hooked it on to the tenterframe to dry, stretched taught.

This isn't the same as the holes along fabric when woven stenterhooks = selvedge.

@steppemum
Agreed!

@Phos Don't worry. I picked my 9 stone teenager up a few days ago. At 5, even a heavy 5, you've got plenty of lifts left!

Not convinced on the Penguin/Bourbon one, I think Tim Tams are the midway point between them. I've never understood why Australians get so misty eyed over Tim Tams like they're the best biscuit ever when they're just a smaller Penguin.

Even better, if you want the answer to a nine times, you can use your corresponding finger. Eg. 6x9, put your sixth finger down, you have 5 fingers before and 4 after...answer 54.

I'm fairly sure tenter is the older word. In medieval English, there's a verb 'tenteren' which means to stretch (eg., cloth, but also Christ on the cross and things like that). Tenter hooks were great big hooks used in the cloth industry, as well as little teeny ones on a frame.

Oh my god the dad jokes with stealth bomber and the bunker. Every time dad. Every. Damn. Time. 🙄

Took me years before I realised the annoying loud Nokia text message notification option on early mobile phones (beep-beep-beep BEEP BEEP beep-beep-beep) is morse code for SMS

Gah, obviously should have read to the end.

I love some of these. The one about postboxes having roots is just brilliant.

This one is sad, but I recently found out that robins quite commonly make two nests. Mum lays eggs in one, sits on them for a bit, then buggers off to lay eggs in the other, so that (in theory), dad can feed the first set of babies while mum incubates the second set. But, if the first set of babies hatch and look like they're a bit weak, mum and dad just abandon them. It's because incubating eggs isn't particularly hard work, but feeding babies is, so it's in robin mum's interests to wait until her eggs hatch and then decide whether to bother with them or not.

(Yes, I did discover this because ours died and I was gutted!)

Sticky backed plastic = the clear and very sticky stuff you used to back exercise books and always provides you with an annoying air bubble.

Sticky tape = Sellotape

When I was little DM told me that Sellotape was a brand name and cellotape was the proper name. I don't think this was ever actually the case, it's either sticky tape or Sellotape. Or Scotch tape. But I wrote cellotape in stories for years and I don't think teachers ever picked up on it.

My dad also taught me to play tennis hitting the ball like you are tossing a pancake. I had a bit of tennis coaching at one point later fortunately.

I learnt recently that Michelin stars given to restaurants are given by the Michelin tyre company. I’d never thought about it before but I learnt this watching The Chase 😁

That pineapples grow on the ground. When I saw some on holiday years ago my mind nearly exploded. You expect them to grow on trees or at least bushes, not just pop up on the ground!

I haven't read the full thread so don't know if anyone has commented. But No they don't pop up on the ground. They grow in little spikey bushes. I don't know of there are some varieties that do pop up on the ground but the most common ones grow in spikey bushes.

wish I knew this at gcse… 33 years too late but bloody hell that’s amazing

The parking ticket machines (in London at least) are shaped to look like a portly ticket inspector, with his hat tipped down.

I'm sure it's to make you think twice before parking sans ticket.

The the world map in its traditional form is not to scale and therefore Russia isnt as big an area as I thought it was.

Speaking of In The Night Garden, I was surprised to find they have not made any new episodes in almost 15 years. They made two series in 2007/2008 and have just shown them on repeat every night.

😱