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 thought for a long time RuPaul's Drag Race was some kind of handmade car race.

For years I thought the Woodstock festival has been held near Woodstock Oxford.

LOL! Just imagining the festival in the grounds of Blenheim Palace!

One of name change for this as verrrrty outing

thought newish friends ex wife was called Himla (that’s what he called her).

she turned up to collect her her son and I answered the door and shouted Himla’s here! (Not sure that’s the correct spelling of Hitla’s mate).

I met someone who thought that St Hilda's College, Oxford was named after Margaret Hilda Thatcher.

But mincemeat was originally made with meat so they were savoury spiced pies not sweet spiced pies.

Wait.... they don't?!??

I was about 27 when I realised that a popular piece of furniture was called chest of drawers and not 'Chester drawers'. I am from West Yorkshire though, and that is what it sounds like when we say it. Chester is relatively close too and I just thought they were made there.

A friend of mine thought as a child that the song line: 'You don't have to say you love me; just be close at hand' was 'You don't have to say I'm lovely, just because I am!' I still prefer her version.

I thought for ages that Russian roulette was a kind of fancy pudding.

Very common misconception. Have a quick gander of FB marketplace and you will see more than a couple of "Chester Drawers" for sale!

I certainly knew everything on this thread, many of which are absolutely basic general knowledge which I thought everyone would know, even children would know a lot of it, so it's surprising when adults don't.
If you read widely, both fiction and non-fiction, from childhood onwards, read newspapers, listen to an intelligent radio station eg radio 4 or world service, go to museums, art galleries etc, keep up with a bit of popular culture, have friends and family with wide-ranging interests which they talk about, and grow up in that type of environment, then you're highly likely to have excellent general knowledge.

I thought "lbw" was a spelling mistake. Thought they'd meant to write "elbow" but had left the vowels out.

I'd never seen a cricket game, either.

I was 20 when the Falklands War broke out. There were many of us who couldn't understand why Argentina had invaded a Scottish archipelago.

I'm obviously older now, better travelled and better educated and TBF I still don't understand why these extremely remote South Atlantic islands have anything to do with Great Britain. It makes much more sense that they'd either be independent or be governed by Argentina.

They are right. I found this out on a previous mumsnet thread.

https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/edinburgh-actually-further-west-uk-18848660

Of course you'd know how a dishwasher worked if it didn't have a window, how utterly ridiculous. What would be the point of rotating spray arms with actual holes in, if not to wash the dishes.
Clearly no one can know everything in the world, but this thread isn't full of obscure difficult knowledge, it's full of utterly basic straightforward general knowledge that people normally pick up on pretty early on in life.

A few years ago my best mates took a year out to travel round the world. A few months into this I contacted them to find out where they would be on a specific date when I could fly out and join them for a fortnight. They told me they would be in Patagonia. Until that conversation I had thought Patagonia was a mythical place like Atlantis or Narnia.

Obv I've been there now and Patagonia is so beautiful it could almost be mythical.

Men can be called Tracy too.

When I was a kid I always thought on film credits “In order of appearance” meant all the best looking actors were listed first

What was her name?

It's Himmler btw

Napoleon actually existed

I thought he was a myth

😅

Except that the people who live there consider themselves British and dont want to be Argentinian.

Whether what happened in history when GB colonised as much of the world as possible was right (think we can all agree that it wasnt), it doesnt alter that these people have lived there for generations. Their right to choose to stay as part of GB is no less valid than when India chose not to.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Islands

Much easier to understand if you read about it. I did wonder until I Wikipedia it but makes sense plus it's residents had a vote in 2013 and 99% wanted to remain British.

Very interesting thread, shocked that Wigan doesn't have a pier (only live 40 miles away and knew it was inland, so not quite sure why it's a shock!)

I thought the same about the KFC guy. Thought it was like Pringles, just a made up character/image .

A lot of people (Americans especially) say "chaise lounge" for "chaise longue". It kind of makes sense because you lounge on it, but it grinds my gears. When I compared the two phrases on Google a while back I found that the wrong one is more common than the right one.

American pronunciation of words or phrases with origins in french REALLY gets me ..... enn rowt instead on on root. CrussANT instead of KWAson. Pareeeshjun instead of Parisyunn..... you get what I am saying!