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

If Maggie herself posted here, she would say “actually, my dear, we are God.”
Johnson and Blair would say this is well. It seems to be a symptom of being Prime Minister for too long.

Johnson was only prime minister for 3 years. He already thought he was omnipotent before becoming PM.

As a teenage boy when she was having hits, I was very aware that Suzi Quatro was not a man.

as @Wilfrida1 says
(i didnt think//is my general stance)
i called my dad a "dildo" and ruined sunday lunch when i was bout 10. He demanded my mum explain why i was not to say it ever again.She claimed not to know what it meant,said he would have to explain to us ALL.(i have sisters too) He was livid, stomped off(pub\sunday afternoon\nothing new) Returned at tea time and pulled out an encyclopedia -page"anatomy of human body"sketch form.pointed at the penis and said a "dildo"is a fake on of these.
cue all bit embarrassing,no further mention(or thought given).
I heard the word again ,at work years later and automatically said "Oh no dont,you shouldnt laugh at the unfortunate" rest of team ..."what?- ?"b and i tell them it must be absolutely horrific having to be a (penis)amputee and living with a (fake)one..nothing funny about it.
oops

That Tracy Chapman was a man.

No a pony is definitely just a small horse.

I always thought that being presumptuous was to wrongly presume something. 😬😬

Some ponies can only be under 14,2hh

Shetland for example are always a pony
But Falabellas are horses even though they only reach 34" (which is 8.2hh) I think IIRC they have fewer ribs than a pony .

Ha ha ha!

I mean in that vein I can get why people think it's tenderhooks.

When I first heard "on tenterhooks" I didn't know what a tenterhook was so a tenderhook would have made as much sense!

I remember reading it was Smiths crisps that had the colours the other way around.

I think the point (at some stage along the way) was that ponies don’t grow into horses. A mature Connemara pony isn’t going to grow to be a 17-hand horse.

(Also some breeds are classified as ponies despite being ‘taller’ than the typical pony height, and vice versa, with some horse breeds being under 14.2 or whatever the usual pony height limit is (which I don’t think is the same internationally, anyway.)

So did I!

Really enjoyed this thread. It’s so interesting that our first misunderstandings stay with us through life despite later being aware of the facts. It’s pretty harmless and just shows how imaginative we all are x

I honestly don't know what it is. She does look a bit blokey, but my husband was adamant she was a man. This was before I'd heard of her, so I didn't think to doubt him. It was only when I googled I realised it's a woman!!

You can’t have been alive / more than 10 years old in 1982 then

2.4 miles

I used to think the shop Tiger (now Flying Tiger) was called Tiger Tiger (like the poem - made perfect sense to me) because the branch we used had a double shopfront and the name was written twice. My children still tease me about it.

Cringe

The cows who ate green grass gave us the green topped milk. The ones who ate red grass gave us the red topped milk. Same for blue topped milk....they ate blue grass. But because the nation drunk more of the green top than any other colour...that's why the cows in the fields ate green grass that spreadover large areas. The other grass colours and cows were in much smaller fields at the farm...because their milk wasn't as popular.

I used to think The Wallis Collection was Wallis Simpsons jewellery.

Just to blow your mind, in some remote societies that is how they perceive the world. So they will tell you to give them the north spoon rather than the left hand spoon, and it doesn't change if you move. I read an account of someone from such a place (rural Australia I think) who went on a plane and felt very ill when they arrived at their destination due to lack of geographical orientation.

I have just learnt today that Samuel L. Jackson, Tracy Chapman and Stevie Wonder are cousins to the Jacksons (Janet, Michael, et al). Mind blown!

The British isles are not as shown on the weather map they tilt and therefore Edinburgh is further west than Cardiff.

For the half a dozen people that have corrected me to say it's "life is but a dream", yes, I know. The point of the thread was to discuss misconceptions. 😏

I don't dispute this but having lived there and also the west of England the weather was much drier in Edinburgh... is this due to the fact that it's still east of the land when the winds blow over the Atlantic?