To have reached the age of 38 without knowing

[lougle]

That pineapples don't grow on trees, but grow in the ground? I'm well educated, went to university (twice), but I had never thought about where my pineapple had come from, and it never occurred to me that the 'chopped' end was on the bottom and not the top!

What didn't you know until recently?

Until recently I thought Richard E Grant was Hugh Grant's older brother. I always thought they looked so alike. Apparently they are not related at all!

Ooh red pigment for paint is made from iron scrap that is super heated (to make it go red), then dried.

Elledouble 😁

Up until recently I assumed Sharks were mammals I suppose because they are large like whales.My v smug dh informed me they are in fact fish

I thought Gibraltar was an island.

Shhhsleeping , after you've held up your hands, thumbs extended, and seen which is your left, and which is your right - curl your thumbs in and you'll see a 'b' and a 'd' - if you're at dinner, at a crowded table, and not sure which side plate/glass is yours, it will tell you which side is your bread and which side is your drink!

Not quite as high brow as some of these but I found out in my 40s that you can cook a frozen potato waffle in your toaster.

I only learned recently that raisins are in fact dried out grapes and I'm 33!

Figs host wasps who lay eggs in them and the figs are pollinated by the larvae. There is generally a dead wasp in figs. Figs produce an enzyme that dissolved the wasp carcass. Some figs can produce fruits without the flowers being pollinated, and therefore don't need the fig wasp. Quite lucky really, because the fig wasp doesn't grow in the UK, but we can still get fig trees to fruit here.

Going back to nuts, drupes etc - walnuts are a drupe because they're the hard seed inside a soft fruit - have people seen walnut trees in fruit? - they look a bit like hard green peaches. It isn't till you hack off the flesh from the outside that you find the walnut.

I know that one, putdown, it's on the Iberian peninsula. I know because I spent several hours queuing to get into Gibraltar during my honeymoon in 2002

Cashews, Portsmouth and Gibraltar . Now I can't sleep.

I buy a pineapple every week, and every week I eat it all. I knew how they grew because we went to Kew as children.
I didn't know about hyenas though. Kind of preferred it that way.....

You've got to take the rough with the smooth on the knowledge rollercoaster, OutToGetYou

Thankyou for this thread, Lougle, it has kept me entertained all evening.

Apart from the fig wasp, which sounds like pure evil and can go fuck itself.

This thread is ace!!

I am at the corkscrew penis of a duck and how violent they are... the ones in the pond across the road look all cute and nice lol

I know who lives in a pineapple under the sea

I thought you meant like a root vegetable, and thought you were slightly --very— deluded...
They grow on plants...

A colleague of mine didn't realise that robins (as in the bird) are all year round birds and don't just 'appear' for the month of December.

Hens can change sex naturally, if they have a tumour on an ovary (they only have one functioning one) then they produce male hormones and change into a rooster.

The fig wasp can bugger off and find a tarantula to live in, I don't eat those so it's ok.

Lougle. Amongst the general public it’s not uncommon not to know about pineapples (and admittedly my own general knowledge is a bit shit), but holy fuck, Where Have You Been? This is done at least twice a year on MN! I’d have bet my house on you being on these threads before! So it’s just as well no one asked me! 🤣

I bought a pineapple plant at Walmart. It had a tiny pineapple growing out of the middle of it. I didn't water it, and it died.

Bearcats smell like buttered popcorn.

A colleague of mine didn't realise that robins (as in the bird) are all year round birds and don't just 'appear' for the month of December.

That's funny, here robins are associated with spring.

At Robins appearing in December. I'm still too scared to Google cashews though.

A friend recently commented thst his phone seemed to charge more quickly at my house than his. I said it was because I was closer to the power station by 10 miles so my electricity is faster. I was amazed when he took me seriously.

His partner called me a couple of days later to say ' have you told X this? He really believes you!'. We still don't know if we should confess our duplicity to him.

OP wait til you google Brussel sprouts!! I thought they grew like mini cabbages not on stalks for years!
I too only learned this in my 30’s whilst visiting the gardens of Chatseorth house where they had a pineapple bed!!
Love this thread it’s kept me quietly amused whilst awake recovering from flu