To have just got 'lefty Lucy, tighty righty'?

[passemoilevin]

Lefty LOOSEY! Not Lucy! I say it every time I'm unscrewing a screw. Never understood the whole Lucy thing until I just heard ant or Dec say it on IAC. Lightbulb moment!

Share your last similar ridiculously obvious realisation

[Calatonia]

I was at Uni when a flatmate's boyfriend said something about "doing a 'number two'"....and I had that lightbulb moment. My parents always referred to it as "toos" in the plural and never mentioned the word number or a number one so I lived for 22 years thinking that "toos" was an alternative word for poo.

[LinoleumBlownapart]

Ok Google says you're not! Wow

[ptumbi]

'Cross-eyed bear' !

I put this on a thread the other day - a poster had written that she'd had a 'Wrestler's night'! I said it to myself a few times before I realised she mean a restless night!

[littlemisscomper]

I'm still learning now, at 28, what some sayings originally meant. Like 'He's got a bob on himself' I only recently learnt means 'He thinks so highly of himself he'd place a shilling bet on himself to win'. And 'I'll swing for him!' means 'I'll kill him and be hung for murder' rather than 'I'll swing my fist and hit him' as I originally thought. There are loads of them.

[ClashCityRocker]

Lefty loosey righty tighty doesn't work for bike pedals, I discovered.

[Sunnysidegold]

Oh swing for him, I always thought it meant a punch! And the spots nd image one! Learning lots here!

[Rebeccaslicker]

I swear! It's from the bible apparently.

grammarist.com/usage/spitting-image/

[GinIsIn]

My friend used to think it was feral jumpers, with the wool taken from wild sheep!! She got really pissed off with me for daring to suggest it was a fairisle pattern.....

[allertse]

Another one here who "righty tighty lefty loosey" makes no sense to. It's circular!! Half is going left and half is going right!

[LemonysSnicket]

ParkingsWarsaga it's 'Baht'at' x

[LemonysSnicket]

and @rebeccaslicker it IS 'spitting image'.

[Ethylred]

In our house it really is ceiling wax. DH had an accident
and splashed red candle wax onto the ceiling. No I don't
know how he did it, his explanation made no sense.

[LemonysSnicket]

ah i see the link you've posted, should've RTFT.

[IreneWinters]

Feral jumpers

I wondered for years why anyone would want to wax their ceiling and if it was something I should be doing too. Eventually I decided it must be something like whitewashing that was old fashioned, which was why I never saw pots of ceiling wax at b&q. The penny dropped a couple of years ago.

I also thought that "Good King Wensas last looked out" until recently. Id seen it written down, but just assumed it was one of those pronunciations like Mainwaring or Cholmondeley or Featherstonehaugh.

[BrizzleDrizzle]

I always thought swing for him meant to punch him as well.

[upperlimit]

France is bacon

[inmyshoos]

I thought it was a mile stone around your neck.....

Also thought it was a ballpoint figure ... as in written with a ballpoint pen...

[grannytomine]

I understood it as "Knowledge is power, France is Bacon" Oh I love that, I will never look at France or bacon in quite the same way. With a smile on my face I'm off to do lunch.

[soupforbrains]

France Is Bacon has become something which my friends and family say to someone when they have imparted a great wisdom.

Also I too used to think it was ceiling wax when I was a child.

Growing up I thought Bullina was a type of china shop where they sold rubbish china...

[coalit]

As a child I loved singing the "Coach comes up from Somerset, where the cider rabbles grow" in a west country accent.

Apparently the advert was "Coates comes up from Somerset, where the cider apples grow".

[MayFayner]

I spent my childhood wondering what someone called Ollie Faple had to do with Christmas, as in "Oh Come Ollie Faple, Joyful and Triumphant"

Oh yes, Ollie Faple. He's a good friend of Round John Virgin, Mother and Child

[TheLittleShirt]

As a child I would never admit to watching The Wombles because I thought they were lower class--- " Underground, over ground wandering free, the Wombles of Wimbledon, common are we" I thought that they were making a statement, didn't realise that was the actual place they came from.

[Dutchoma]

I asked what a dance settee was in I am the Lord of the dance settee.

[Tangofandango]

allertse no it isn't going half left and half right. If you're turning something to the right, you're turning to the right all the way round. You're not changing direction halfway round.

[ShakeShakeTheMuffin]

@tango. No one said it's changing direction.