Things that you've thought that were in fact absurd

[Pacificplaza]

Inspired by another current thread: what things have you thought to yourself, and accepted as true, which on telling someone else have quickly transpired to be completely ridiculous?

E.g: I always thought that when drinking a hot beverage, that the misty effect observed should you happen to glance down into the cup was your EYEBALLS getting STEAMED UP in the manner of a pair of glasses. When I casually mentioned this at work everyone kindly pointed out that I was just... seeing the steam.

My car is an old banger with no air con, just the air blower. For my entire life until my ExDP corrected me, I thought you had to 'run' the hot air until it turned from cold to hot eventually in the same way you do the tap. Rather than just turn it on once the car's warmed up. The hours I must have spent grimly tolerating a stream of freezing air in winter .

I'm not normally a simpleton by the way, I've got degrees and stuff and mostly manage to function.

So please tell me I'm not alone!

Ahhh pontefract cakes. Which aren't cakes at all. Not even remotely. Nothing whatsoever like cakes!

I remember the panorama spoof about spaghetti growing on trees. I thought it was perfectly feasible and couldn't understand why everyone thought it was so funny!

I was confused between gorillas and guerrillas too. And very confused as a child in shut him between our souls and the soles of our feet.

I thought goats were boys and sheep were girls

Hahahaha at the channel tunnel.
My dad told me the green lights were the fishes eyes on the Euro tunnel 🐵

A couple here, my mum used to tell me the insides of fig rolls were spider legs, i still won't touch them as I can't stop thinking of spiders.

Also, an irish thing I think, my mum used to tell me when I lied, my tongue was black.

Mowgeli, my sister thought tigers were female lions (and admitted it during an A-level biology lesson).

Poor lonely old African lions, waiting for a date...

Peruvian birthing helmets

When I was a kid & I heard that a body had been found I thought it meant just a torso

No idea where I thought the limbs & heads were

stupidly thought that my baby's umbilical cord was attached to the inside of my belly button until I was about 8 months pregnant.

Thought this too & didn't know that about the channel tunnel!

Was astounded to learn that Transylvania & Timbuktu existed.

areyoulocal commented: "But of course Unicorns are real. " and NooNooHead1981 wrote: "Lol! How did that colleague of the PP think that the UK was actually the whole world?! Are people really that dim?"

Um... this reminds me I was obliged to confess on another thread that I (who live abroad) had absolutely no idea what "FCO" stood for (this happened as late as yesterday). I know it now, though. Thanks, Wikipedia. Abbreviations were never my forte.... I constantly mix them up. There are about 59 different meanings of that abbreviation. I also once thought England=UK but that was when I was a child so I guess I'm sort of excused for that one.

gingergenius explained:

"First, it's "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." The capitals are important.
Buffalo has three meanings in American English; the adjunct noun "Buffalo" is the city in New York, the noun "buffalo" is the plural and singular name of the American bison, and the verb "buffalo" means "to outwit or confuse".
The sentence itself uses some trickery in order to remain grammatically correct. It uses two clauses in grammar, the reduced relative clause and the restrictive clause, that allow it to go without commas or joining words.
The sentence means that the Buffalo buffalo (the bison in the city of Buffalo, New York) are intimidating other bison in their city through the use of bullying, and are in turn being bullied back.
A more accurate sentence might be; "Buffalo buffalo, that Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo." Or "Bison from the city, that bully bison from the city, are being bullied by Bison in the city."

Hahaha I must try to remember that one.

Btw, I did not know "Buffalo" = New York until just now!

I used to think that MA (Cantab) meant they'd been to Canterbury university.

grumpymacgrumpface

I moved to Oxford in my 20s, my parents were visiting so I gave them directions. They had an old map which showed 1/2 of the motorway so I told them that the M40 now went all the way to Oxford.

But my mum was directing and my dad driving so she directed him off the perfectly good M40 on to other roads for about 60 miles and then back on to the M40 where her map said it started again.

I thought Cantab was Canterbury too

And I worked with someone(university educated- very accomplished) who asked an Australian colleague if she ever got confused having December in the UK when it was June at home

What?!? I don't understand! But you might be confused about that?

Confused by what, yaela. When it is December in U.K. it is December in Australia, it's just the season is summer in Australia. Or have I misunderstood your misunderstanding?

*Yesterday 14:44 MaroonPencil

My mum will not have it that you can't stand at the end of a rainbow, in the same way that you can't stand on the horizon. She insists she once stood inside a rainbow where it touched the ground*

I still kind of think she's right 😳I remember looking out of my bedroom window as a child and noticing that a rainbow ended right beside next door's shed.

Usually rainbows are waaaay in the distance.

When all the "free Tibet" stuff was going on I remarked to DH that if they make it free to bet, it's not really betting at all and wouldn't it be better to get gambling addicts the help they really need?

I thought those black and fluorescent spinning signs (usually outside garages and stuff advertising MOTs) made Coca Cola.

I knew you had veins and arteries but I thought any extra blood that wasn't within them was just sloshing around. When we covered the circulatory and lymphatic systems as a 20 year old nursing student I was to find out about arterioles, capillaries etc

I thought all buses were red. Grew up in London, (and must have been outside of London before this but not clocked it) then went to Manchester for a uni open day and couldn't believe my eyes. Not only were the buses not red, but they were all different colours. Absolutely wild.

As a young girl I read a book with a character called Chloe , I thought it was pronounced Ch-low. I also read hyperbole as hyper-bowl. Superlative was super - lative,preface as pree - face and epitome as epi - tome.
When we were kids , if we picked our nose we were told your head will cave in. But coming from cockney parents it came out as edacaving. I thought that edacaving was either some terrible medical disorder/illness or that there was a boy called Ed Acaving who picked his nose and had had something awful happen to him as a result. I even asked the school librarian if they had a book about him so I could find out what happened!

Buffalo is a city in New York State - it's isn't the same as New York City

The worrying thing about this thread is that some of the things people nw believe are true aren't!!! (Like the chicken joke)

Distracted - that means there was enough rain or mist between you and the shed for you to see the rainbow effect. You can get pretty good 'rainbows' from a garden sprinkler too.

So you know how Jupiter contains I Vow to Thee my Country, and Pomp and Circumstance has Land of Hope and Glory in it? That's because words were set to the tune.

I felt sorry for the poor hymn writers who's melodies had been pinched!

In fairness, some things do contain previously written tunes (like Greensleeves and other folk songs in another Holst Suite) but they don't normally make up a whole movement...

When I was in junior school we were taught a hymn which included the line "Teach us delight in simple things".
I mis heardit and used to sing "Teachers delight in sinful things"