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?! 😃

Owned by the Duke of Devonshire to add to the geographical confusion.

And whose "family seat" is Chatsworth in Derbyshire.

Admitted I've not read all the way to the end.... And I'm sure a Native Welsh speaker will inform me correctly, but I got it from somewhere that Araf doesn't actually mean slow, but instead translates as "less of". Like less speed. So whenever I'm driving in Wales it always makes me smile to myself to imagine a real gruff cross Welsh Man sat on my back seat shouting at me "LESS OF IT!" when I'm speeding along country lanes at 60 mph. 🤣

No, they grow like normal cucumbers. You can buy seeds and grow them in your greenhouse. Often labelled as luffa rather than loofah. So you're correct that they don't grow on TREES but they do grow on plants (vines, but not grape vines.)

I’d probably have thought the same had I not watched Thelma and Louise about 200 time🙂

I once had to read out aloud a passage from ‘Shane’ at school to the whole class - must have been about 12 - and I read it really well, though I say so myself, except I didn’t know how Arkansas was pronounced. Never forgot it after that, though!

@alwaysdarkestbeforedawn
I completely.accept I have been saying it wrong all.these years but merely saying there is a logic to my misunderstanding. At least to me !

When I was young and we would go on car journeys, I’d sometimes see the ‘Heavy plant crossing’ signs.
I used to sit in the back with my eyes shut and be as quiet as possible.. I thought it meant actual heavy plants, and I’d not long seen ‘Day of the Trifids’ and could never understand why my Mum and Dad weren’t terrified 🙈🤣

I have 2.

I used to think epitome and epitomy were two different words. One pronounced E-pee-toam and the other pronounced e-pit-om-ee...

The other is really stupid. When I passed my driving test, I thought that you paid for parking after you'd used it, as you were leaving the space, so you could pay for the amount you had used. Three weeks into having my first car, I got a ticket, I was furious as I had paid! Two tickets later, after a massive moan to my friend about how our council were really thick because I'd had 3 tickets already when I knew I'd paid, she corrected me (through fits of laughter).

To be fair Witch lots of car parks are set up so you pay when you leave (and that way is much better in my opinion) so if that’s the only type you had ever seen I can understand you not realising that they’re not all like that.

The same sort of no thing as nothing... It's not the thing you're expecting. It makes as much grammatical sense as having another think coming, as if thinking is like waiting for a bus or the food you ordered. If the saying was 'have another think about that' I'd get it. But it doesn't, it sounds like the person you're talking to is waiting for thoughts to be delivered to them. At least 'another thing coming' makes sense in that it could be anything (an event, an item, a reaction, a time, a place) "if you think you're going to school in that, you've got another thing (eg. not going to school at all/a clip round the ear/being grounded) coming" vs "if you think you're going to school in that, you've got another think coming (your thought about your clothes is due to arrive in 5 mins??)"

I see people saying think was first. Okay, but there's loads of words and phrases we used first and ditched. Telling people 'a think' will be with them soon is weird. So is thing, but think is worse.

Another one that hadn't realised the double meaning to the chicken joke! I thought it was funny because the answer was a such a let down.

On the epitome/epitomy thing, the same happened to me with fatigue. I knew what the word meant, but I'd never associated the pronunication with the written form until I had to read a poem aloud in Year 9 history class (Dulce et Decorum est by Wilfred Owen, it still haunts me). The mockery of the teacher rings in my ears (she was my favourite teacher too). And at university I had to read out my history essay with the word hegemony in it and managed to butcher it in two different ways (the g sound and the syllable stress), luckily my tutor then was kinder and at least it's a word which does have two acceptable pronunciations, albeit mine was neither of them.

@WrongWayApricot it means "think again". If you think you are going out dressed like that you've got another think coming. In other words, think again because you are not

With Portsmouth being an island, I think it's fair enough if people didn't know that. The creek separating it from the mainland is so narrow that it's almost literally blink and you'd miss it (not advisible if you're the one driving), you could very easily visit Portsmouth and not notice that you had crossed it, especially at low tide.

There isn't a double meaning and your explanation is the whole joke.

Yes, as I said, I understand what it's supposed to mean. But, that's not what it actually says. If I said 'you have another biscuit coming', does it sound anything like me telling you to have another biscuit? If I wanted you to have another biscuit I'd say 'you should have another biscuit'.

I have never thought there was a double meaning to the joke, but there actually IS a double meaning there, whether one was intended or not. Who’s to say what was in the mind of the person who originally made the joke?

I was involved in the mass back to school covid testing for a large secondary school (staff and pupils) and it's affiliated 3 primary schools (staff only) and I'd say at least 85% of staff and pupils did not know where their tonsils ACTUALLY are, instead thinking it was the uvula!

Only if you entirely ignore the whole origin and phrasing of the saying.

you have another thing coming makes no sense. What ‘thing’ ?

I was in my late twenties when I discovered that moles are tiny rather than being the size of large hedgehogs and that badgers, are in fact massive, and not sort of rabbit sized as I imagined them to be. I had never seen either creature in real life until I started a job that meant commuting through a very rural area very early in the morning.

Re tonsils and uvula:
I might be misremembering but I have a recollection of a drawing in a comic where a character was shouting or crying and their uvula was pictured as having two ‘bobbles’ rather than one. As a child, I though we all had two bits there and assumed they were the tonsils. A while later, I realised that the uvula was a single bit of flesh and was not the tonsils.

I’m 26 and can’t get out of the habit of saying ReNember not remember because no one corrected me as a kid.. now everyone corrects me as an adult but I just can’t stop saying it!

I asked, in my late teens while watching the football ( someone vs Wales, taking place in wales) what time it was in wales.. because it was dark by us in England and broad daylight in wales; not realising the pitch lights worked quite that well😂

It’s why Charles Lutwidge Dodgson chose the pen name “Lewis Carroll” to separate his writing from his mathematics career.

@iknowimcoming
Unbelievable
It was in biology class very early on in primary school.

I am relieved to learn it's more than just me and another person on this thread thought that!