Misunderstandings you had as a child

[NoEffingWay]

When I was little, there was a florist near my house. It had beautiful displays of flowers, and I used to spend ages looking in the window. What I really wanted to do was save my 20p a week pocket money and buy my Mum some flowers. Not just any flowers but the ones that said ‘Mum’ on them. I was in my teens before I realised these were for funeral cars . Luckily for my mum, there was a sweet shop next door where I spent my 20p on sweets every week so I never even asked!

I couldn't understand the situation in Northern Ireland at all (child in the 1980s/90s) as I was under the impression that the "unionists" were the people who wanted to see a united Ireland (it made sense in my head!)

Similarly, I misheard the Gulf war (as in the first one - operation desert storm) as the Golf war!

I thought Lisa Stansfield had lost her 'baby' and I was scared that my mum would lose me and have to go around the world to find me.

I wondered for years what "butter dream" was.

I also thought the knight in "When a Knight Won his Spurs" was "bald" rather than "bold" and wondered what having no hair had to do with gallantry

Being a child who always had her head in a book, I was always very keen to visit a bookmakers - all those new and shiny books!

I thought the globe was in the sky. I didn't realise we were on it.

I believed that if you had a cold you had to wash your hands carefully before using the loo or your nether regions would catch a cold. I was well into adulthood when I realised I had muddled up colds and coldsores...

I also believed that when a baby was born the doctor ties a knot in the umbilical cord near the stomach and it slowly sank down to create the navel. I thought that different shaped belly buttons were the result of doctors being more or less skilled in knots. It was only when my daughter was clipped I realised my mistake.

I didn’t know what an “O” was in “O come all ye faithful”.

Also thought that ages worked in different ways to numbers. This was because I once asked my mum how old she was but she misheard and answered “Six”, my age at the time. Somehow I thought that when it came to ages, you only counted the unit and not the ten. Either that or you somehow counted backwards.

I thought it was just me! I can’t remember what point I realised they weren’t advertising toilets or if someone had to explain it to me!

I remember my brother and sister talking about wiping tapes when we got our first video player. I thought you somehow wiped the tape with a cloth!

I thought that sea-water pools on ships went right down through the whole ship and so were open to the sea at the bottom.

I thought that my dad got paid a monthly celery.

I used to think that the cats’ eyes in the road were made from real cats

I used to think that one of the teams on University Challenge really was sitting on top of the other.

Also that Cadbury's was called Edbury's as I didn't realise the fancy letter at the start was a C

I thought this too, except that I thought the signs had stick on letters and the i had just fallen off.

I thought that whenever my mum wanted to buy something, writing a cheque created money. I thought she was most unreasonable not buying anything and everything i wanted with this magically generating money.

I was the same!!! I'm so happy I've found someone else!

We used to say some sort of prayers at primary school in assembly and I thought when we said 'Amen' we were saying 'our men' and that it was a way of paying respect to men that fought in the war!!! Not Christian so had no idea about the word.

I didn't know the difference between the terms 'passed away' and 'passed out'. So once a friend told me a story about someone passing out and I said 'sorry for your loss' and she was like.... What???

Similar to a pp I also thought the term 'cut their head open' meant their head literally broke apart like an easter egg.

I thought the adults were stupid for going to war over a game of golf.....
I was around 9 when the first Gulf War began and it took a while for me to realise that it had nothing to do with golf!

Same here! To me, of course the Gulf War was about golf....

I was a late teen (that clearly hadn’t seen enough TV or spent much time in hospital) and my dad had a heart attack. Looking at the heart monitor a few hours later I said “isn’t it supposed to be a straight line?” Dad burst out laughing and explained what a straight line means. I felt awful as well as stupid.

When I was very young my dad parked
the car, and my dad, my mum and I walked over to a stone wall overlooking a deep gorge.
I couldn't see over the wall but I heard my mum and dad pointing out the white rapids far below.
I was lifted up so that I took could see this amazing sight, and even today in my memory, I can still "see" the huge white Rabbits in the gorge that my younger self thought she could see.

I firmly believed that it was illegal to use a car’s interior light under any circumstances.

I never understood why in a prize draw on the back of packages it would say that there were say 10000 footballs that you could win. I couldn't figure out why anyone would want 10000 footballs. What would you do with them? Where would you store them? How would they even be delivered? Would i sell them?

I got there in the end.

‘To let’ and ‘toilet’!!!🙈

I also found it confusing that the Cranberries were singing so passionately about SALAMI SALAMI SALAMI I I I I. That one took much longer to iron out.