What obvious adult discoveries made you feel a bit of a plonker?

[Airconfan]

What’s something you learnt as an adult that made you think that’s completely obvious and yet I have never considered that….i feel like a bit of a plonker?

Mine was when taking tablets, the more you drink with it the better it will dissolve. I think alot of tablets are testing with the assumption people will drink 250ml alongside it.

Oh I hate this. All the bacteria and plaque you've just brushed off being swallowed or remaining. No thank you. Surely better to rinse thoroughly then apply fresh paste to teeth.

Thing is, it is quite a dodgy place. The conversation so often goes:

"Good night, was it?"
"Put it this way, we ended up at Loser's."

Or,

"Where the hell did you meet this nutcase, anyway?"
"Loser's"
"Ah."

In fairness, that's only been the advice for the past 20 years.
It took me ages to change the habit after reading it - partly due to having read that swallowing paste might be carcinogenic. I spit, spit, and spit again, just in case 😂

Maybe that is where I got it from?

It is so believable!

That the rain in Spain doesn’t stay mainly in the plain. I was in my 60s flying over Spain. There were mostly mountains!

The name for the male domestic dog is “dog.”

The name for a female duck is “duck.”

And yet deer get specific names for each sex.

The whole thing is ill thought out.

I’m going to admit I didn’t realise this till fairly recently. You’re not alone there!

Evelyn Waugh was indeed a woman. She was married to the famous writer, named Arthur Waugh, but always known by one of his middle names, which was also Evelyn. Their friends referred to them He-velyn and She-velyn to distinguish between them!

Same.

Not that long ago I learnt that a lot of the unpleasant symptoms when you're ill aren't caused by the illness, they're caused by your own immune system trying to kill it off and chuck it out - temperature, runny nose, muscle aches, not wanting to eat, all caused by your own system

I remember telling people when I found out , and no one seemed to know this fact either. It amazed me as I always thought a rainbow ended on the ground in the distance somewhere, although I wasn't convinced there was a pot of gold at the end of one. 😃

Is it something to do with one layer of water being colder or saltier so it falls past the other water? Hopefully someone who knows will explain it better.

Didn't you watch Frasier?

I thought that napkin rings were decorative and bought them all the same pattern, colour and size, so pretty - and was told only recently that all napkin rings should be different, that their purpose is not decoration but to prevent laundering them between meals, so the same person will use the same slightly soiled (by him) napkin again and again, i.e. everybody would recognise his or her ring! I did not know Victorian were so ecologically minded, despite having servants.

Why???
I didn't know this! 😂

There was a band called Dubstar, though, wasn’t there? Maybe that’s what you were thinking of

I have never eaten it, after working on the deli in tesco as a teenager and having to open a massive tin to slice some - there were two types, one tin that was all mushed up and just looked like a tin of dog food (yuk), and the 'better' one, that had lots of actual tongues with jelly around them (double yuk).

I remember someone, on what must have been a slow day, carefully removing some jelly to take a whole tongue out.
Still, better than wasting parts that can be eaten I suppose.

Don't give him any ideas 😆

I’m on mirtazapine I made the mistake once of taking a tablet before I had got a drink of water. By the time I got downstairs to get a drink of water at least half the tablet had dissolved. I didn’t sleep much that night. They help with sleep as well as being antidepressants. Never did that again and never had such a bad nights sleep since.

I thought ‘nonce’ was an insult for a silly person until my late 20s. I used to go around referring to myself as a nonce when I made a mistake!

I remember my mum asking for some at the deli in Asda. So I must have eaten it but I can’t remember what it tasted like. The only reason I remember her buying it was because my mum’s friend teenage daughter worked there and she served her.

🤣🤣🤣 cute!!

You said what I was thinking 👍🏻

I think it's only pronounced like that in parts of Spain

We have a good friend who thought that 'twat' meant the same as 'twit'. She's very innocent and would never knowingly swear - her instinctive go-to when shocked is "My giddy aunt!", as if she's escaped from a Jeeves & Wooster book!

Maybe it's a posh-person thing, as David Cameron made a jocular comment in front of the press which suggested that he believed the exact same thing - and he merrily said a rather offensive word, believing it to be the equivalent of a similar but entirely inoffensive family-friendly word!