Things you are too embarrassed to admit you don't understand

[ClassicStripe]

I don't think I really understand what a fascist is.

Gross is the total - it's the amount that makes you sick cause you never see it (sick is gross), your lucky to be left with what's left in the net after every thing else has sieved away.

Thank you @AlfietheSchnauzer! That's quite chilling to think of 😶

Oh, good point...

Oh my god this! I can’t understand, it’s magical sorcery to me!

I don't understand the logic behind roads, speed limits round abouts etc .. I'm learning to drive and memorising things but the explanations are a bit bizarre. Like box junctions seem arbitrary. How can you work out when to join a roundabout, its just too much to think about. And why do narrow roads randomly have national speed limit signs in places that's clearly not safe then suddenly go down to 30 miles an hour and the roads wider?!

Also why do people get so angry at any perceived mistake on the road? I slowed down do I didn't run over a cyclist and everyone beeped. Seems unhealthy 🤣

Exactly what@CurlyhairedAssassin said. I am 54 and I've never fully understood these things! Which makes it very hard to teach my kids about them.

To those who are struggling with "effect" and affect:

EFFECT as a noun
It had a positive effect on him.
The drug had serious side-effects.

EFFECT as a verb
To effect change in the country, a change of government was necessary,

AFFECT as a verb
The pandemic really affected him.

AFFECT as a noun (less common)
The patient displayed positive affect.

To those struggling with this, try and write example sentences for each four of these forms (noun and verb for each word) in the thread and I or others will look at them.

You can do this, once you get it you will not forget! 💪

It bothers me that I have forgotten inverted commas around "affect" in my post but I can't edit it...🙄

I agree. songwriting is amazing to me. The way that Elton and Bernie did it. Bernie sent the words and Elton wrote music to go with it, blows my mind.
Also, time signatures. I can hear that music gets faster or slower, but all that 3/4 9/8 stuff boggles me completely.

Are you actually serious? People on the other side of the world don't live standing on their heads. Gravity = billions of pairs of feet planted on the ground aaaaall the way around the globe.

Enzymes are chemicals, made of protein, that are produced by living things to do just about every job the living thing needs. One example is digestion- your food is broken down into the nutrients your body needs by enzymes. All of your cells are full of different enzymes.

An example is amylase in your saliva, which breaks down starch into sugars. Hold a cube of bread in your mouth for several minutes without chewing and it will become sweet. The starch in the bread is being turned into sugars by enzymes.

They are usually named by what they do, e.g. DNAses break down DNA and proteases break down proteins.

Washing powder enzymes include proteases because a lot of dirt and stains are proteins e.g. blood. They were specifically designed to work at higher temperatures because enzymes work best at the temperature of the living thing they belong to (for humans, 37degC) and most are destroyed at high temperatures. Washing enzymes tolerate higher temperatures but are still destroyed by a very hot wash. They will work until the water gets too hot.

I know this thread isn’t for answering questions but I couldn’t resist this - as a biologist enzymes are a very big thing!

Why very tall skyscrapers don't topple over.

I'm literally more confused about life now, after reading this thread.

I had a conversation with an ardent brexit voter just recently who was adamant that brexit was the right thing to do but he still couldn't tell me what the single market and customs union are.

PO numbers should be on the invoices so they can be matched up.

Gravity

Started during WW1 so farmers could harvest later into the evening and to conserve energy stocks.

Electricity. Simply cannot grasp it. Embarrassing.

Pensions. No matter how or whom they are explained, I can understand for a few minutes, then the fog descends once more.

I’m irked by your reference to love island and your misunderstanding of its audience. I watch it but understand net and gross perfectly. You make a lot of good points in your post but it’s easy to overlook if you open with such an annoying comment.

The whole of any number is 100%.

Imagine you buy something for £100. The next time you go to buy that same thing it costs £120. So it is now 120% of the original price - the whole number (100%) plus another 20%.

Or you get paid £1,000 per month. You then get a 300% pay rise and now get £3,000 per month.

Re affect vs effect

I think of it in terms of, affect is the change whereas effect is the result of a change

So

How has it affected [changed] you?

What effect [result] did that have on your life?

Mortgage rises are really affecting [changing] me

The effect [result] is that I have less money

So when you’re not sure which to use, think about whether you’re talking about a change or a result of a change.

Affect can also refer to mood, but this tends to be in a medical or psychology setting.

I’m not sure if that helps anyone or just confuses things more.

How so many different languages and dialects came to exist, it fascinates me!

I think speed limits are set according to population density not size of road but someone will be along to correct me if I’m wrong! So a narrow, windy, country lane might have a national speed limit because it is bounded by fields but a wider, big road in a City but might have a 30 mile limit because there are more people around.

@VinEtFromage i have done that many times to try and work it out - the plane lands the opposite way to how it took off. Yes, the wheels are on the ground, but the plane itself and everything inside it is now the opposite way up to how it took off. I cannot understand it!