Things I'm embarrassed to have realised so late in life...

[OrangeFlowersAreLovely]

Those ID necklaces? I had absolutely never heard of the word "lanyard" until around 3 years ago. All my friend's children learnt this way before I did. If you had told me "Lanyard" was a European city - I'd have believed you.

That little press send arrow in the top right hand corner? It only occurred to me in my mid 30s that it is in fact a paper aeroplane. I just thought it was a dodgy triangle.

I was absolutely stunned to find out the woman who plays Amanda in Motherland is not Catherine Tate.

Any confessions to console me I'm not the only one failing at life?! 😃

Friend thought Wensleydale cheese had been introduced by Wallace and Gromit and hadn't previously been a real cheese!

I thought Newcastle was nearer to London than it is to Manchester or Scotland.

The same is true of olives - black olives are just more ripe than green ones.

Game changer!

I always thought it meant that you basically had 2 hours! As in, if you didn’t return to your car within 2 hours, they’d take your car away!
I’ve parked in ‘30 minute’ parking spaces before for up to an hour thinking it’s ok because I’ve been back within the 2 hours!
Oops!

Kind of... but it's not about tags on clothing. You know the paper bits you see wrapped around fresh bundles of notes? Those are the tags they're talking about. Popping some tags is about busting open those wads of cash to spend it.

All the people confidently just stating, “It’s ‘another THING coming’!” I imagine you’re thinking of the song perhaps? But this isn’t an argument. There is no argument. It’s in the Oxford English Dictionary as “another think coming,” whereas “another thing coming,” is listed as a misrepresentation of the earlier phrase ‘another think coming.’

Whole story here:
theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2014/nov/18/mind-your-language-another-think

Link to Oxford English Dictionary tweet SPECIFICALLY regarding ”another thing coming” being wrong, so it must have been driving them bonkers that people were so fucking certain about it: twitter.com/oed/status/242977857394049026?s=21&t=-fHLLwW-loIav4CkYP8w9w

As for some of these things (and of course, not all of them - some of them are just really obscure trivia, but quite a lot isn’t), every time one of these threads pops up, my friend and I discuss it again and come to the same depressing conclusion: if you’re privileged and you grew up encouraged to read and be curious, and you choose to still read and be curious, and IF you have the privilege of free time (which is a huge, HUGE privilege in modern society) to read and look things up on Wikipedia whenever you want (every day) and read the news (every day), then you probably won’t have huge blind spots (maybe one, over something you read when you were a child?). And if you’re not privileged, and you never had any encouragement to read and be curious, and if you still don’t have time to read and be curious even if you ARE curious and you’d like to read, because you’re working NMW at two exhausting jobs or you’re a SAHP with an unsupportive spouse or an abusive one or a lot of other situations and a lot of other reasons, then you’re more likely to have these huge blind spots. It always makes me quite sad, and I do think it shows the world is damn unfair. I get that it’s supposed to be a funny thread, I’m sorry I’m such a downer, but do you think Prince William thought Gerry Adams was called Sinn Fein until he was 40? Or doesn’t know what a lanyard is? We see again and again that knowledge can keep people privileged or make them more privileged, and lack of knowledge can keep or make them deprived.

I freely admit that I didn’t feel 100% certain about whether it was “another thing coming” or “another think.” Only “another think” makes sense in the actual saying, but a lot of people on this thread stated it was “another thing” with such certainty, that it made me doubt myself. So. I looked it up. That’s what I do. But I’m very privileged in one way - I have the privilege of a lot of free time right now because I’m dying. IF you had free time (and I know that many people don’t), and you confidently stated it was “another thing coming,” maybe ask yourself why you didn’t look it up instead? I mean, it’s clear as can be in the search results from news articles and grammar blogs which all link to dictionaries that it’s “another think coming.” Wouldn’t you rather know than argue?

On that note, I didn’t want to be condescending, but I did just want to make sure you knew a lanyard referred to two things, OP. The* *lanyard can also just refer to the cord itself, so you could say, “I have lost my lanyard for work,” and mean a lanyard attached to what it’s carrying (the ID necklace you referred to), like an ID, but not always an ID, or say, “We’ve bought 500 lanyards from China for £20 and need to attach admittance tickets to them,” and be talking about just the cords.

Are you sure @Irishgene ?
I think someone’s having you on. Which ‘warning’ does it supposedly refer to?

it’s also a rather unclear and convoluted instruction which rather defeats the point,

and when you drive in Wales the equivalent literally translates as ‘slow’ not as a Welsh translation of that random acronym.

all of which suggests me that when you see ‘slow’ it means ‘slow down’

Actually he did start as M&M which came from his real name, Marshall Mathers, and then it got changed to Eminem.

And me too - wasn't until they said end of the second Elizabethan era.

That the abc song and twinkle twinkle little star ard the same tune. Only just realised

Where did you get this idea about the paper on the money? Can you point it out to me? Because the term “popping tags,” originally came from the street term for shoplifting “popping” electronic tags off merchandise. You can find references to it online as early as 2004:
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=poppin%20tags

Lawyers have even written online about shoplifting in reference to the Macklemore song since he specifically says, “I’m gonna pop some tags… only got $20 in my pockets.”
zarembalawoffice.com/blogs/popping-tags-still-retail-theft

Now everyone seems to just accept that it means removing tags from new clothes (it didn’t) and Macklemore wasn’t referencing shoplifting (who knows; personally, I think he was being a bit cheeky - he’s wearing a fur coat in the video and a gold necklace but implying he only had $20… okay then).

I know Gunna has a song called “Pop Tags,” and it’s possible from the line in this, he could be referring to what you’re talking about, but the phrase has been around for so long that it would be bizarre for him to try to single-handedly use it for something else. It’s much more likely to hear this kind of money (wrapped in a piece of paper by denomination) referred to as “wraps” or “stacks” or “fat stacks.”

Either way, no, @Mothership4two , it’s not violence related, and if it’s the Macklemore song, it’s pretty harmless, but if it’s Gunna’s music, there are much more adult lyrics in it than those referencing tags.

That sheep naturally have long tails and they get chopped off by farmers.

I didn't know that the handle on manual tin openers splits into two to "drop" the lid once it's been removed from the tin. I always tried to manhandle it out of the tin-opener's grasp, with much fighting and cursing.

Accidentally dropped the tin opener on the floor a few months ago and the handle split apart. Thought I'd broken it until I realised that it was supposed to do that!! It's been a game-changer....

Oh and cattle grids....

I thought they were for getting mud off the hoofs of cows so farmers didn't get their farms dirty and full of mud. I know, I know....

@SpidersAreShitheads
😆

Another think coming!! It just doesn't sound right, I can't believe I've been saying another thing coming so confidently. I have also been on 'tenderhooks' 😁
I thought all cows were milked until recently, not just dairy cows.

Eh???

(I'm off to open a tin .....)

Not me but I know an intelligent and educated man who was in his twenties when he learned that unicorns aren't a real albeit extremely rare animal.

@Irishgene I didn't know that! Makes me wonder though as Welsh roads have Araf which literally means 'Slow'. (I think anyway, unless I'm about to learn something in the spirit of this thread! 😁)

FFS. MN just deleted my post when I was trying to explain. I'll try again!

So, the tin opener has what looks like a solid handle made from white plastic. You hold this and then just hook the tin opener teeth over the edge of the tin, and then turn the metal twisty bit at the top.

When the lid has been removed, what you're SUPPOSED to do is split the handle in two - this widens the teeth and the lid drops out easily. What I was doing instead was trying to wrestle the lid out of the vice-like grasp of the tin-opener without splitting the handle in half to open up the teeth. Because I didn't know this was a thing. It isn't obvious that the handle splits into two and separates....or at least it wasn't obvious to me.

I'm 46 FFS. Years I've been fighting with tin openers for....

I can get you a photo of bastard tin opener if it helps haha

I was 40 when I found out that mouth to mouth resuscitation wasn't to restart the person's breathing but just to keep the oxygen going to their brain until the ambulance arrives. I had done a number of first aid courses over the years too. (Mouth to mouth is no longer advised I think; just chest compressions.)

Except in Wales (and maybe the Lake District?) where the farmers leave the tails on to keep the sheeps' bottoms warm. I suppose they weigh up the threat from bacteria in sheep shit versus the cold.
The removal of sheeps' tails is referenced in Little Bo Peep "leaving their tails behind them".

I always thought it was mustard.

That the lyric in "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is "We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks". I just used to sing a load of random sounds in that part...

Similar to other people’s mis pronunciation and links with text - mine is awry.

Until recently I read this at ‘aury’ as in aura rather than ‘a - rye’ (to rhyme with dry).

Although I have heard people say awry, I had not connected it with the written text.