Things you assumed and were astonished to find out you were completely wrong

[Cattery]

For example: The Elgin Marbles. Heard these mentioned from time to time over the years. Always pictured marbles; kids’ marbles. Then I heard they were something to do with Greece and I’ve always thought Elgin was there. Got it all completely wrong

I used to think the world’s core was boiling hot lava, but it’s solid. I’m sure I remember learning the opposite at school, but apparently not!

I remembered learning the same thing but just looked it up and the outer core is molten, so that’s possibly where the confusion comes from

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_outer_core

I thought it was the “suet” canal when I was young…

Cross post with Putting.

I’m another who thought the Falkland where just off the coast of Scotland and the war was an out Scottish island. My uncle even fought in them 🤦‍♀️ I wonder if it is an age thing, I was a kid and would see it on the news, I’m certain an adult said it to me.

I thought the dark side of the moon never got any sunlight until recently. It always faces away from Earth so we never see it but it's not always dark. My friend who is a primary school teacher thought the moon shone with it's own light until she was about 30.

As a child, my family had no involvement whatsoever with horses or horse-racing.........except having a bet on the yearly Grand National, (which I despise but that's for another thread).
I thought, until a few years ago, (and I'm now of mature years), that when you bet on a horse "each way", the horses ran the race from beginning to end, then turned around and ran from the end back to the beginning.
Well, that's how it sounds, doesn't it?

By the same token, I was amazed to discove that Joe Swash is married with children.

Same here, in fact I always have to remind myself silently of this fact whenever I hear it mentioned

@ISeriouslyDoubtIt so you know absolutely everything and have never been confused once over something or misunderstood something as a child?

Often these things get confused because they're not something brought up or talked about all the time.

Well done you for knowing absolutely all random general knowledge you could ever need to know.

Is it???

Because that is how the invasion started, a group of self-proclaimed scrap metal merchants from Argentina (the group included marines, so not exactly archetypal scrap merchants!) raised their flag on South Georgia, a British outpost which is east of the Falkland Islands. I only know this because I lived there and was heavily involved in the 40th anniversary commemorations in 2022.

Congratulations on your superiority. 👏

I think it must be! Isn’t it weird how we take things in as children, I could have sworn I had a lesson all about it in science at school!

So used to seeing the map of the world laid flat out as a poster, I was totally mind-blown to look at it on a globe!

I am still fascinated by how close Russia is to the US on a globe, how tiny the UK actually is, and how far we are from the likes of Australia, New Zealand etc. Dont get me started on the size of some oceans!

I can spend ages studying a globe!

Adding to that:

Nearside and offside make more sense if you imagine no road markings at all so your only reference point is the edge of the road. The part of your horse or vehicle nearest to your edge of the road is the nearside. The other is "offside" in the same way that a ship in the sea is offshore and not onshore.

I was well into adulthood when I discovered that lego can be bought in specific sets. Ours was mostly inherited as kids, so it was all in a box. All my legoing had been freestyle, so instructions were a bit of a mind fuck.

I think the Russkis have changed everything around, to confuse us all. That must be it.

There was a sign at some traffic lights nearby that said “obey green arrows” but I didn’t read obey as obey, in my head it was obbie to rhyme with hobby. So I just assumed the shade of green used for traffic lights was called obbie green and the sign was just describing the colour I supposed

It's basically the opposite to what my brain thinks! I would think the inside lane is in the inside of the road (near the central reservation) and the outside by the hard shoulder. But it's the opposite

I suspect a fair few people did, yeah 😳

I thought the Super Bowl was for bowling.I was watching it on TV,watching Coldplay sing,then I asked someone when the bowling was about to start 😂

It was Anton Du Beke that surprised me, along similar lines

I always thought Mariah Carey was a white woman.

I used to think that Oral Sex was when you sat around and talked about it in depth....

I eventually found out that wasn't the case

(Thankyou Steve of Whitby)