Things you’ve only just found out

[TheChosenTwo]

About 2 days ago I discovered that Skegness isn’t in Scotland 😳 How did I never know this before? Embarrassingly, I’m 38 😂

Is this an age thing? I'm in my early 60s and growing up it was impossible to avoid WW2 films on the TV and all sorts of references to the events of WW2. The evacuation of our troops from the beaches at Dunkirk in 1940 was one of the key events of WW2. I find it hard to believe that anybody approaching my age or older could have failed to grasp that Dunkirk is in France.

What about Christopher Nolan's film Dunkirk, which was only made a few years ago? Nobody watched that and thought 'Oh, that's where Dunkirk is'?

If you live in the South East, especially coastal Kent you'd have heard about Dunkirk because of the ferries between Dover and there. If you were interested in geography, maps, atlases, etc, you might have noticed places on the coast of France. Maybe to some people that sort of thing is a bit nerdy. I think the history of the second world war is deeply nerdy to many people nowadays. My son studied the war in school history 20 years ago, and he says many people know very little about it. Never underestimate peoples' ignorance about things that they aren't interested in. Many people aren't terribly curious.

We use Dunkerque ferries a lot - I always think of the evacuation when we arrive and leave there - and DS definitely knows what happened there.

I amazed my son when he talked about the the first battle of Alamein by saying 'Ah yes, Mersah Matruh'. He couldn't believe that his mother knew about that.

And some people think you can buy combs specially for combing your fine teeth 😏

This blew my tiny little mind - The two parts to the word “helicopter” are not “heli” and “copter”, but “helico” meaning spiral, and “pter” meaning one with wings, like pterodactyl.

It is?! Well I just found that out.

That’s news to me. Thanks.

Oh mumsnet! I am so glad I joined … at 66 I thought I was far too old. You’ve all just given me a side splitting manic time reading all these posts, in fact I am crying with laughing… thank you for the fun in an otherwise serious “ life”😂😂

I honestly think my confusion about Dunkirk is Dunblane and the word Kirk which means graveyard in Scotland and without thinking I've put the two together

This whole thread reminds me of those schoolkid's jokes which followed an advertising campaign for vodka, like 'I thought Wanking was a place in China until I discovered Smirnoff'.

I believe it's an urban myth that Smirnoff ran the ads in the 70s but reportedly pulled them after a few months when its market researchers surveyed customers and discovered that '60 per cent of them thought that the Kama Sutra was indeed an Indian restaurant.'

I always thought that Kirk was Church!

Oh I thought Kirk was grave as in Greyfriars kirkyard

@HelloIsItYouImLookingFor , but it's 'kirkyard' - church + yard

Yeh I just looked it up and a Kirk is a church. Haha, least I know now, thank you.

Brunei is a separate country but it is next to Malaysia on the landmass

I thought is was hilarious!
Lighten up.

Yes.

Ah that map explains why you didn't know about Donegal @sashh.

And today I was listening to Jeeves and Wooster and they were eating something "toothsome". Definitely didn't make sense as toothy! Isn't funny how you learn something new and then it jumps out at you?!

(On another current thread) that the songs land of hope and glory and pomp and circumstance are the same piece of music, and both are by the composer Elgar..

As a child I used to think God's full name was Sir Humphrey God, as in the court oath "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, Sir Humphrey God".....
I'm not even going to mention how old I was when I realised they were saying "so help me, God" 🤦‍♀️

omg me too I never new this either every days a school day on mumsnet!
I'm off to the kitchen cupboard now to inspect my foil and clingfilm boxes.

'I will always love you' was written and sang by Dolly Parton 18 years before Whitney Houston sang it for The Bodyguard

Moved from Yorkshire to Berkshire just after Charles and Di’s wedding. Started Reception at the same time.

Sang “Who put the colours in the rainbow?”
”It surely can’t be [Prince] Charles!”

For longer than I care to admit. At least a couple of years, until I got some glasses and could read the OHP lyrics. I did not realise southerners said “chance” with a long A.

My version was technically correct, Prince Charles did not put any colours in the rainbow.