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

Hamburgers originated in Hamburg in Germany. Generally made from beef and shortened to burgers, then called beef burgers. Similarly frankfurter sausages originated in Frankfurt. 😂

Pontus fractus - broken bridge.

I never got the meaning of the name Asterix. I knew that the other Gauls in the books had puns for names, Getafix, Obelix (obelisk) etc, but I thought Asterix was just a random made up name. It wasn't until DS1, aged about 6 at the time, said "he's called Asterix because he's the star of the stories" that I got it. Asterisk.

Penge. I thought it was in Cornwall.

You have just blown my mind!

My husband & I thought the same thing about the Elgin marbles!

I recently found out that many people who are deaf from birth can't read well/only to a basic level. Turns out reading is closely linked to speaking, so if you can't hear then reading is a real challenge. Absolutely blew my mind.

This thread has educated me and blown my mind, in equal measure!
I do note a lot of confusion comes from people trusting that other people are telling them the truth (brothers mentioned a few times).
When I was very young I was told by an adult that thunder was caused by clouds bumping into each other. It made sense to me because if I bashed two cushions together, they made a slight sound and clouds are so much bigger so the sound would be so much louder. Like a previous poster I proudly answered a question about thunder in class, with my 'explanation'. I can still hear the laughter😳. Mind you I think the adult who told me genuinely thought they were right!

Ponies and horses are the same species. Zebras and horses are different species. Quite different scenarios no?

Brilliant. 😂😂😂

I thought D day was a name for the Dunkirk evacuation and my 30 year old son thought Vietnam vets worked with animals. I also was convinced Billie Eilish was English until she was in LA playing in the closing Olympic ceremony. I couldn't understand why she was there.

@HappyThread I'm in tears! 😂

How did you account for all the shapes? Coincidence?
Please explain!!!!

This is such a great thread. Just chuckling again about the five o'clock shadow sundial one. And the floating islands held together by bridges.

That Flippin Heck means Fucking Hell
Literally found out two months ago. I'm 66.

Every day is a school day on MN!

Because it’s impossible to know everything, because we absorb things as “truth” when we’re young and have misunderstandings that we don’t even think to correct, and because we don’t know what we don’t know.

I bet it’s only a tiny minority who read these threads and don’t have a single moment of “oh shit - I didn’t know that either!”

I can.

1. There's too much information out there for any one person to know all of it.
2. You've only got to be off sick for that lesson and you don't learn about something that the rest of the class learns about.
3. Loads of stuff, like how dishwashers work§, isn't taught in schools full-stop.
4. It's a certainty that there will something that someone else considers "simple general knowledge" that you don't know, because you've never been in the right place at the right time to learn it and never needed to know it.

§: We had someone on the last thread like this who had thought that the entire box fills with water the way that you fill the sink with hot water. It doesn't: the double-ended rotor arms spray water at your dishes from underneath like a hot sudsy lawn sprinkler. But if you've never had a window-fronted dishwasher to see this happening, you wouldn't know that.

When Argentina invaded the Falklands loads of people had never heard of them and had no clue where they were, a lot of people thought they may be off Scotland until it was explained on the news

@stonebrambleboy
Have you heard:
Shut the front door!
See you next Tuesday!

😄

Did you ever question why we fought Argentina over them?

So how on earth did you think the body was put into the coffin for burial? With all the mourners present, watching?

I thought it was eyes to the right and NOSE to the left, and could never work out how they did that and how weird they must look.

And like a few others, I was 40ish when I went to the British Museum and was disappointed to find the Elgin Marbles were not, in fact, stacked up like profiteroles.

Reading this thread feeling fairly smug, but then, wham! Billie Eilish isn’t British? 😮

I'll have to Google them.

@Pillowbiter It isn’t. The t is silent

Oh and I remember calling my dad a twat when I was ten because it was the latest swear going around school. We readily call people twits affectionately in my family, because often we are! And my little brain calculated that twat was a milder version of twit because the vowel was two stops earlier in the alphabet…

”Ha ha dad, you forgot about the cheese on toast under the grill and now it’s burned! You twat!”

”Bedroom NOW Arlanymor! And I don’t want to hear another peep from you!”