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!

My husband genuinely thought that when a parachute opens, the parachutist goes up for a few seconds 🙄😁

brokenshoes when would a person learn this though?
I learnt about space f
In primary school (not to a very deep level) and then for a brief part of our science text book in year 7 at secondary school and because I have never had an interest in the solar system or space in general, my knowledge hasn't really deepened beyond that.
There's nothing flabbergasting about it, it doesn't mean I'm less intelligent because I don't know some facts.

Distracted oops is that note the case? I suppose it just looks like that

ducknose that's so funny!

This threat has just informed me that "albeit" is not pronounced "al-bite"

And hyperbole isn't hyper-bowl, what?!

I do pronounce gesture as "guess-chure" but so does everyone where I'm from. How else is it pronounced?

I say jest-ture. No idea if I'm right!

Gesture is a soft 'g' so pronounced jesture.
Hyperbole is 4 syllables: - 'hy-PER-bol-ee' (emphasis on the second syllable).

I always left the Lion Bar in my Christmas selection box because, although I never actually asked anyone to confirm this, I was pretty sure they were made from lions.

Imagine my surprise years later when I tried one.

Getout21 - no 😁

They only look like they go up when filmed by someone else parachuting who opens their chute later.

If you’re watching from the ground they are always falling - except of course they fall slower when the chute opens 😁

'Albeit' is just that - think of it as three separate words 'All' 'be' and 'it'. Kind of makes sense, really!

'Gesture' is always pronounced 'JEST-ure' and 'Hyperbole' is always pronounced 'Hy-PER-bo-lee' as others have said

Simples.

For years I was convinced that spiders crawled up plug holes and that's why they ended up in your sink/bath. When going away, I used to put all the plugs in to stop spiders coming up - by chance, on these occasions, no spiders were ever there when I returned so it just reinforced my thinking.

It was only when my husband pointed out that they could not climb up water pipes and round the u-bends that I realised it wasn't true. I took a lot of convincing though!

As a child, my brother wouldn't eat fruits such as strawberries as our grandad told him that if you are the seeds they would grow inside you!

@pumpkinpie2016 apparently spiders like the bath/sink as they need a white surface to make them more visible to other spiders for mating purposes 🕷 🕷 🕷

Pumpkin, that reminded me that I was told as a child that if you swallowed bubble gum it would stick to your heart and you'd die.

Even as an adult, when I've accidentally swallowed gum I've felt a brief moment of terror about it!

So when a spider is in your bath it's after sexy times???

when a spider is in your bath, it's because it fell in (off the ceiling or wall) and can't get out.

I can't find the post now but someone mentioned downthread about it being funny that their dh pronounced hyperbole as 'hyper-bowl'.

I actually had to google the word to listen to a sound clip as I didn't know what the poster meant or what was wrong.

I've a perfect understanding of the meaning of the word. I have an English degree. I have used the word 'hyperbole' in essays and a work report. I have always, always pronounced it (in my head) as 'hyper-bowl' and never realised how wrong that was!

Thankfully, I've for some reason never happened to use it in actual speech!

Originalfoogirl, that's extraodinary! I distinctly remember making up that very story about the Haggis, one Sunday lunchtime with my family, many years ago!

Maybe I know your dad!!!

I only know how to pronounce hyperbole from the webcomic/book Hyperbole and a Half. Spent a lifetime head-pronouncing it hyper-bole when seeing it in books!

I spent most of my childhood wondering why people didn't get into trouble for stealing other people's words for cartoons and animated shows. Honestly thought all voices on cartoons were taken from other things, other tv shows or conversations, as you never see the actors doing it! In my head one day famous person would be watching The Simpsons or whatever and discover they were on it, using words they recorded for a play or something!

My mum tells me, though I'm not sure if she actually believed this, when she was a child she thought women would eat money for months then when they'd saved enough go to Woolworths and give them all the money and come home with a baby.

PumpkinPie2016 Had you read Penelope Lively's "A house inside out"? Where it was not spiders who climbed out of the plughole, but woodlice, who would be on an important quest to FAIL to climb up the side of the bath. There was no mention of U-bends full of water in that book.

Wouldn't you hear the correct pronuncation of hyperbole when doing critical analysis of English literature at school?

If you didn't know the correct pronunciation of hyperbole do you know the correct pronunciation of litotes and simile?

I had only read the word hyperbole so didn't know how to pronounce it until a few years ago. I also didn't realise that the word albeit was the same as what I thought was the phrase all be it. I will stick by a quote that I have heard though that you should never mock someone for a mispronounced word as it means they learned it by reading.