What were your childhood misconceptions?

[Splodgerbodgerbadger]

I always used to think if a pub said free house it meant you got free beer.

There was this lorry place we used to drive past that always had a sign saying pallets wanted, I always used to think ‘why do they want paint pallets’.

There was a coal fire at my Granny’s house and one day my Dad touched it and I realised it was fake and it never felt as warm after that.

I thought 99’s were so called because they cost 99p if only!

I knew someone who, when pulled over and asked if he had been drinking, said yes...got breathalysed..completely clear..police asked what he had been drinking, and he replied with a cup of tea at my mums . He was completely serious. He said if they had asked if he had a beer, he would have said no, but they asked if he had been drinking, so he replied truthfully. They walk among us every day 🤣

Same.

Me too!

I always thought WC was a disabled toilet, you WC for Wheel Chair

I remember thinking AD meant 'after dinosaurs' . When I started secondary school the history teacher asked if anyone knew what AD stood for and I proudly shouted out after dinosaurs. She went absolutely mental at me for "mocking" her and I sat there as if my whole world had just crumbled 😁

That the way to tell the difference between cows and bulls was that cows were black and white and bulls were brown. Yup, that's the only way to do it.

I had an elderly relative who lives in a house that hadn't ever been touched or modernised. She had a mangle for putting the washing through. I genuinely thought that when we visited her, we were going back in time.

I'm English and also told by some kids at school that if you swear but do it in a Scottish accent, it's not swearing. I tried this out at home and it seems it wasn't true. 🤣

I thought betting shops were a place for men to have sex.

The shop's windows were covered over so you couldn't see inside and dodgy looking men went in and out rather sheepishly and always on their own.

Ooh nooo! Poor you!

Mine is similar but I just stopped myself in time:

I had heard the phrase “primary colours” when I was little, and perhaps part of my brain had been told it meant red yellow and blue, but a bigger part of my brain ignored that and casually assumed that primary colours were grey, white and navy - the colours of my primary school uniform.

In an art lesson at the start of secondary school, the teacher asked “does anyone know what the three primary colours are?” And I went to put my hand up to answer, as did others. And I just started thinking “hang on, the other kids here went to a few different primary schools, with different colour uniforms, how does that work then?” And I started to doubt myself in the nick of time, someone else was picked to answer the question (correctly) and I’ve been feeling a light cold panic about what might have been ever since.

Another one - we (group of friends) all thought Disposal Bags (those paper ones on the back of loo doors with a pretty lady on them) were for putting poos in, if you had to go when you were out on a walk in the hills. This is because we asked one of our dads, and it seems that this is the answer he gave. We had known they were funny because you only ever found them in toilets, but this made them far more hilarious. It was probably a year or so before we figured out what they were really for. We were too far off puberty to have any idea! Still makes me smile if I see them! And I feel vaguely cheated that my menstruating adulthood involves much less paper Disposal Bag usage than I’d thought it would. Damn those sanitary bins.

😂

I was about 10 and thought married couples only had sex when they wanted a child. One day I made an innocent comment in front of my father and youngest brother, and they thought it was time I had a gentle explanation about sex.

I used to think that a couple had to keep on having sex thoughout pregnancy for the baby to keep on growing and developing.

I always felt desperately sorry for the women who worked in our library as I thought they relied on late fines to earn money. I would intentionally return my books a few days late and feel virtuous handing over my 15p fine thinking they could buy some food for themselves 😂

The newsagent up the road from my parents let locals have credit, it was referred to as 'putting it on the book'.

Never knew it had to be paid for, I used to breeze in, pick up a copy of Twinkle and some crisps, ask them to put it on the book then waltz out.

Visiting someone's house with my Nan and she said she was going upstairs to spend a penny, I assumed there was a shop up there and was annoyed she wasn't taking me to the shop too

SausageinaBun · 09/12/2022 18:28

My school used to collect food for harvest festival and then make up hampers for the elderly with it. Some of the hampers each year would contain dog food. I used to think, "I know they're in need, but do people really think old people eat dog food?"

I think I'm even dafter, my dad's mate worked at Spillers and was very well paid. I asked what he did and he said that he had to eat a tin of each type of dogfood, every day. I was probably 7. He explained that it was so that they could say that it was fit enough for humans, so definitely fit for dogs.

I was 23 and at college and I was talking to a lecturer about it, it was when they were doing something to the defunct Spillers plant in Gateshead. She looked at me, shook her head and said, "Goodness! And you still believe it at your age?"

I was massively embarrassed, but my dad and his pal, naturally, found it hilarious!

Some of these are adorable.

when i was little and cowboy type films on tv, i assumed they depicted life in a geographical part of america, ie the west.
rather than in the past, and in the west.
i still feel that i had logic on my side.
why didn't they call them olden-days life in the west.
or something.

Not a childhood misconception, but I thought until I was 52 that anemone was spelt and pronounced anenome. I'm usually an ok speller too!

An acquaintance rather sniffily said of Earl Spencer that his first name sounded quite common. We must have been late teens.

When I couldn't sleep as a child, my dad would wrap me in a blanket and then take me for a drive to Brize Norton Airbase and tell me that the lights on the runway were to show Ken Dodds Diddymen the way into the jam butty mines.
If I stayed really quiet and still, I might even be lucky enough to see them - Never did!! Always woke up the next morning in my bed and when I went down for breakfast I had jam on toast.
I'm 50 and my DD is 22, grampy used to take her when she was little.
He passed away before he met his great grandson, but now I take him and tell him the story.

Thing is even to this day I still believe that if I stay really quiet and still - maybe one day I will see those little diddymen going into the mines.......

Oh that's really cute!!

And a "man helping the police with their enquiries" was just being nice and trying to help, like Miss Marple.

I couldn’t understand why actors would play the parts in cowboy and Indian films, as no matter how famous they were or how much they got paid, they couldn’t spend it after being killed by a shotgun or a bow and arrow on the tv …… yes I thought they were shot for real!