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.

Did you hear about the caveman who wanted to know where the sun went at night?

He decided to go and have a look, and was just going over a hill when it dawned on him.

Chimley is a regional variation of chimney

On the subject of tablets - if you're taking pills, it works as expected to tip your head back to swallow. But if you're taking capsules, tip your head forwards instead - they float!

He was from Hull, born 1930, and had a strong 'old Hull' accent. I miss him.

My dad always said chimley too, and he was a builder!

My boyfriend recently found out that gherkins are just small cucumbers. He is 40

and nor does the tide!

I think in Shakespeare’s time it was ‘chimbley’

Erm I’m 45 and just found that out thanks to this post 🤣

Very random but I recently found out that the phrase and movie “ex machina” is pronounced “ex makina” not “ex masheena”
(It means “from the machine”, from “Deus ex machina” (God from the machine) which now is used to mean a movie plot technique where something random or unexpected saves the day)

I knew it wasn’t in Washington state, but think I was in my 20s and living in the US before realising that Washington DC is so called because it isn’t in a state at all — it’s in an invented federal district under the jurisdiction of Congress, so as not to give any state the advantage of having the capital. Surrounded by Maryland and Virginia, but not in either.

Got to say I’ve loved glow in the dark stuff all my life. I think it started with an owl key ring.

Do you remember the glow by global T-shirts?We used to want them to glow as much as possible so we’d get mums bedside lamp and use it upside down to focus a beam of light and it made the t-shirt glow better.

I may have not described it well but I bought a UV LED usb strip light off Amazon approx £8 to use with UV reactive makeup. When showing the children I didn’t realise that one several pots had glow stars in them When we turned the light off. (We were in the dark) the stars glowed so strongly. Tested on other glow in the dark stuff watches and a pair of tights 😳 the UV light superchargers the items to glow effect.

Honestly can’t believe it

This was me too…

At uni, in a teaching English lecture and the lecturer asked what mistake might children make when reading the word chimney.

I had my hand up ready to say that they might read it and say ‘chimNey’ when thank goodness she chose someone else who said that they might say ‘chimly’ because they’re over using the ly suffix!!!

I was mortified at what nearly happened!! My friend and I might have spent a proportion of the rest of the lecture laughing at what I nearly did though!

How much glow stuff does one person have?

Well yes it does, by moving to shallower coast.

Actually maybe people can tell me - why do they tip their head back to swallow tablets? They don't do it with anything else they swallow.

I remember seeing a lecture by someone on, amongst other things, how swallowing works and he demonstrated the fact that gravity has nothing to do with it by standing on his head and drinking water.

The devil is in the detail: 'silicon' is not the same as 'silicone'.

I bet this is a common misunderstanding.

I've posted this before but I thought the channel tunnel was under the sea not under the sea bed.

You don't even need to do that. A flash from an old fashioned camera should recharge them.

My children were disappointed when they first just went through as they were expecting to be in a glass tube and be able to see the fish😃

They are usually on ceilings and walls, hence pointing the light up to them.

I thought the Mersey tunnel’s roof was see-through, but I blame Willy Russell’s ‘Our Day Out.’

Gherkins are not just small cucumbers, they are a type of cucumber bred for the ability to be small and not be too watery, as cucumbers go, so more suitable for long term pickled or fermented storage.

That's not unreasonable, some tunnels actually do lie on sea bed.

I'm in my 70s and I only learnt that last month!
I've brushed my teeth twice a day since a tiny child but I was never even shown how to use the toothbrush correctly. So my dental hygiene routine has been a learning curve all my life. The not rinsing came to light after the new hygienist I saw last month advised me to get a water flosser. When I bought it I was confused about where it fitted in to the tooth brushing, interdental brushes and mouth wash procedures. Google A1 provided me with a tooth cleaning regime which included the information about not rinsing after brushing and mouth wash should be used to freshen the mouth at mid day or similar tims in-between brushing. I'm still reeling from the shock.
Also fed up that tooth cleaning, boring at the best of times , is also now more complicated. On the plus side I've got all my own teeth and they are in decent nick.