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

Me too! To be fair, I don't think they ever did a wide 'studio' shot in the early days so there was no way of telling!
Though this does bring up glorious memories of an episode of the Young Ones where Vivian kicked through the floor to get to the posh students! Actually at that time I still thought that was how it was set up!

I’ve sang ‘good tidings we bring, to you and your King’ for over 40 years 🤦🏻‍♀️

Yes. To you and your KING
Good King Wenceless LAST looked out

This has reminded me of the cadburys fudge advert.

I always thought it was

A finger of fudge is just enough to give the kids a treat.
It's full of peppery goodness and really nice to eat
A finger of fudge is just enough to give the kids a treat.

Not helped by me singing it round the house and no one correcting me that the goodness was in fact Cadbury and not peppery!

Why didn't you also correct the "eyes"?

It's Aye.

Aye and Nay. Yes & No. Voting.

........sorry, who did you say you were?

When you study public law, a lot of the cases you look at are where people take the local authority to court. I was embarrassingly far into my law degree when it dawned on me that C.C. after the name of a place in the name of a case stood for County (or City) Council and not Cricket Club. For months I was astonished at the amount of people dragging their local cricket team through the courts.

(That's when I decided I'd start actually bothering to read the cases rather than just learning the legal principles from the text books)

This is not me but a friend of a friend seriously believed that this was the ‘real Concorde’.

And me! I always fancied sitting upstairs if I ever got on Universally Challenged.

Years ago when living in the UK I went to the local library and asked if they had "Anna Karenina" in one of the branches so it could be sent over. This was before computer systems between libraries existed. Remember the joys of microfiche, anyone?

The librarian wrote down my request and asked for the author's name. I said "Leo Tolstoy" and I saw her write "Leo Tallstory".

@echt, I would love to believe this was a librarians' in-joke.

I still thought that and I’m mid-40s

It’s actually fascinating how many of these misconceptions are so common and to think how they might have come about, especially when you are learning by making connections and associations as a child.

Then it’s easy to see why you might hear Pontefract and think it would be in Wales like Pontypool. You might hear Falkland Isles and think of Falkirk and the Shetland Isles. Margate is by the sea so maybe Harrogate is too. Billericay and Tipperary, maybe? Confusing the ethnicities of Shirley Temple and Shirley Bassey? And once those ideas have formed it’s difficult to shift them.

I remember when I was very little once thinking America was to the east of Britain. I can still see the ‘map’ of it in my mind, although the real one has firmly supplanted it. But I can still conjure it up, and I suppose it might come up subconsciously one day and I’d have to check myself before saying anything!

I'm not sure what age I found out this was wrong, but when I was a kid I thought that when characters aged up in films, they actually stopped filming and waited for the actors/actresses to age up to finish the film... 😅

And then I watched Boyhood when it was released which does actually do that so I guess I was a right a little bit? Hahaha

I only worked it out when I realised my March baby was 6 months old and the clocks still hadn't changed 😂😂😂

Well it's quite clearly bullshit no doubt made up for this thread.

You wouldn't call to children the mum's NAME (Johnny, Himla is here!") you would say "Johnny, your mum is here!" or Peter, Johnny's mum is here can you come down!"

I still thought that and I’m mid-40s

An awful lot of people don't know the difference between silicon (chemical element that semiconductors are made from) and silicone (polymer used to make rubber-like substances).

You might hear Falkland Isles and think of Falkirk and the Shetland Isles

Or - you might think of the actual place called Falkland which is in Fife!

The sheer amount of adults who don't realise that Disney didn't invent any of these tales but merely stole and bastardised them.......🙄

We already had a cat, then we got a dog. I thought that dogs were self cleaning, just like cats, I was very sad to find out that they are not!

I also thought that once you gave birth, your body automatically pinged back to how it was before (and would not still be wrecked 13 years later!)

Evidence!

Wow really? I had no idea!! And I have a degree in computer science!!

Haven't read all the pages so it may have been mentioned already.

I was sure, like 100% sure, that in my childhood Walkers cheese and onion crisps used to be in a green packet and salt and vinegar in blue, but that at some point they swapped. I'm sure I can even remember being confused when it first happened after opening a packet from a multipack and it not being the flavour I expected. But apparently this never happened and the packet colours have always been as they are now. It's also apparently a very common false memory (mandela effect).

Me too, still think it sounds Irish!

No no no, it's "like is Butter's dream"

No idea who Butter is 🤷‍♀️

They were, for sure, I remember the swap. Hula Hoops are still that way - blue salt and vinegar, green cheese and onion. Walkers used to be that.