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?! 😃

Maybe it would be called the Harrodian Era?

I believe it would be "Henrician" but very glad to be corrected. Charles I's era was Carolingian too, rather than our current Carolean.

I agree it’s probably a backronym. “Speed Low Observe Warning” doesn’t add anything. It’s just waffle that is already adequately covered by the word “slow”.

well there is also a Hillsborough in Sheffield

Henrician, as in the Henrician Reformation.

Are you me? Exactly the same conversation here on holiday with my DP, two days ago. After much snorting he explained what they were. So a frieze? Why not say that! 😄 BTW, I'm 52!

@RaininginDarling
well I assume they are made of marble so that's where the name comes from. Though I am doubting myself on that after realising I have got other things wrong my whole life.
Another confession is that for most of my life I have spelt February wrong . I always though it was Febuary minus the first R . Goodness knows why and esp embarrassing as I have a child born that month !

I was in my 20s before I realised RayBans are called that because the sunglasses ‘ban’ the ‘rays’.

I didn’t realise this until I read your post. I think I thought ‘Ray’ was a person. A designer. Like Hugo Boss or Tommy Hilfiger 😂

well I assume they are made of marble so that's where the name comes from. Though I am doubting myself on that after realising I have got other things wrong my whole life.

I think you're right they are marble (popular material for sculptures).

@RosalindsAFuckingNightmare to get to "the other side" as in life after death.

I just thought it was "to get to the other side of the road DUH" but seems I am woefully wrong

A relative of mine, late 40s was genuinely shocked that there was no hole in the middle of a fresh pineapple like they do in tins.

What is it?

The Mr. Men live in Misterland.

Timbuctoo is a different series of books, with characters including Oink the pig, and other onomatopoeia-inspired names.

Both series are by Roger Hargreaves.

The Mr. Men live in Misterland.

Timbuctoo is a different series of books, with characters including Oink the pig, and other onomatopoeia-inspired names.

Has it…..?? 😲 (Goes to look…..)

As a teenager in the fifties I knew what and where a clitoris was (and what it was for!) but in my head I pronounced it cly-toris. It was only ten years later when I heard someone say "clit" that the penny dropped. Luckily I never said it out loud so escaped that embarrassment.

@Baggingarea It’s nothing to do with life after death. It’s funny (arguably!) because you expect a witty punchline but instead just get a mundane factual statement.

@alwaysdarkestbeforedawn see that's what I thought but it's an old fashioned way of saying it gets hit by a car.

Yes, Henrician.

The interesting exception is Queen Anne. As far as I can see, 'Queen Anne' has come to mean a style of architecture, furniture etc - and she was a Stuart monarch - but there’s no term analogous to Jacobean, Carolingian/Carolean, Elizabethan, Henrician etc.

Oh my god! I can't believe I have gone nearly 40 years without understanding this!

I had this exact thing with the word 'banal'. I always thought it rhymed with 'anal' and when I heard people saying it out loud, I thought it was a different word. Thank god it wasn't really a word I ever used!

It’s really not. I mean, people are free to interpret jokes however they choose and there have been many variations of this one over the years. But I stand by my explanation of the original meaning. For your version to make sense it would have to be a suicidal chicken. Why would anyone assume a chicken wanted to kill herself? Do chickens have a reputation for being suicidal? Maybe if it was a lemming…

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...

I read on MN of somebody who thought it was "we're eating lots of powdered egg and giving off farts" - which I think is much better

Also Natasha Bedingfield mispronounces it in "These Words". Makes me wonder every time how no-one picked it up.

Was that deliberate, though, to sound a bit edgy or to force a rhyme - like the way Sophie EB sings 'hypno-tis-ED' in her new song?

Yes, surely it’s just another variant of the old 'why does the Prince of Wales' (insert important person of choice here) 'wear pink-spotted braces?' Answer: 'To keep his trousers up'.

The question sets up an expectation and the prosaic answer utterly deflates it.

You haven't missed anything. People have tried to apply a death interpretation to the chicken joke but it really isn't there. It is just, as a PP said, a joke that works because the answer is obvious and makes the question pointless.

The SLOW acronym is rubbish too. It says SLOW to remind you to slow down, that is all.

I'm not buying the Frozen names thing either. They don't even make Hans Christian Anderson if you do string them together.