To ask the most basic thing you never knew/misunderstood until adulthood

[ChanandlerBongsLeftShoe]

I feel like a completely ridiculous excuse for an adult but the other day I found out the difference between cottage pie and shepherds pie.

I am in my 30s and gobsmacked (also feel a bit stupid now it's so obvious). I genuinely thought they were the same thing.

Is there anything you discovered as an adult that was just common knowledge to everyone else? Or perhaps there's a phrase you've found out you have been saying wrong all this time etc...!

Help me feel a bit better.

@Piglet89 I know you. I swear I do. Did you discover this while working in a well known bar? I still can't listen to this song without laughing at that

Oh and I've posted about this before somewhere but I only realised last year that John Torode isn't called Jonty Rhodes!!

@Hahaha88 and @SmiledWithTheRisingSun

Gibraltar is a headland. It’s not an island because it’s connected to Spain.

53rdand3rd Thanks for that Scottish translation of Fud! I'm Australian, so hadn't heard that delightfully vulgar term.
Anyway, it turned out FUD was short for effing ugly dog. A real sweetie, tho, and still missed.

I studied a lot of history through school but it took until right near the end of senior year before I realised it was not called the 'Coal War'

For years thought KL was a city somewhere in SE Asia spelled 'Ka-el' or similar, no idea it stood for Kuala Lumpur. Was aware of that city, just thought that was somewhere else.

And like another PP, to this day I still can picture the Elgin marbles being large round glass balls. I think they are various sizes from exercise ball up to roughly the size of an elephant. And I've seen the actual Elgin Marbles in the British Museum. Makes no difference........

*In the hymn 'there is a green hill far away' I always thought 'without a city wall' meant it didn't have a wall round it!

Doesn't it mean that?*

No, it means outside the city wall!

A colleague once wrote on a report that a pupil still had a piece of coursework outstanding. At Parents' Evening she brought it up and the parent had assumed it was a very good piece of work

Yo Sammity Sam 😂😂😂

It's no "hold me close, now take it down, son" (howling!) but have just remembered the classic Oasis lyric I sang up until, um, last year:

Before we get on the bus
And cause no fuss
Get a grip on yourself
It's all gone squelch

The pepper one was news to me!

The rabbit/battery one isn't true though. The Duracell bunny was first used in advert in the 70s, long before the vibrator.

@SmiledWithTheRisingSun me too!

I genuinely believed that red grapes were used for red wine and green for white until about 10 mins ago when I read on here that it’s not so. I was around 28 when I realised that pineapples don’t grow on trees. I am ashamed to say that I too thought that we had two pipes in our throat, one for breathing and one for eating, I learnt that was not true when I was in my late 30’s. I also thought that the light in the fridge stayed on when the door shut and I can’t wrap my head around renumerate not being an actual word? I have said that word many times in the last 20 years .....oh and I thought Copenhagen was pronounced Copenhaygan.

During my teenage years, when anyone commented about boys having boners, I thought they had an actual bone in their penis, which stood on end when aroused. I’m ashamed to tell you the age I was when I found out that wasn’t true!! Obviously wasn’t paying attention during sex education (too busy sniggering at the banana/condom combo)

It turns out that Samuel L Jackson is Samuel Leroy Jackson, and not Sammyoouell Jackson.

Jaywalking is just crossing the street not at designated crossings. Certain US states get pissy about it.

I only learned a few years ago (while reading a Stephen King book) that you can drive between the Florida Keys. I’d assumed that the people rich enough to live in the Keys would all have boats or small planes, but the highway between the islands looks amazing!

Also, the Thousand Islands, which also gave their name to the dressing, are in the USA. As a child I’d assumed they were in the South Pacific or something, they sounded so exotic.

Minuscule is from handwriting! In about 1400 there were two kinds of handwriting, majuscule which was the all caps kind (sort of like that Gothic German script) and minuscule, which was the small kind. Somehow we've kept minuscule as meaning small.

I didn't realise Wimbledon Common was a place, and thought the Wombles were singing that there were a lot of them so they were common. In my defence, I'm from the north of Scotland and we don't have commons! I was in my teens before I found out that wasn't the case.

I am ashamed to say that I too thought that we had two pipes in our throat, one for breathing and one for eating

We do don’t we? The esopagus and the trachea.

I thought until a couple of years ago that the whole of center parcs are entirely under big glass domes. I blame the advert in the 90s

I grew up in the seventies near a small town called Alcester. Pronounced All-ster. At the time the Troubles in Northern Ireland were widely reported. You probably know where I'm going with this...

@Biancadelrioisback you have a pal who made the same discovery, but I don’t think that person was I as have never worked in a well-known bar. I didn’t have a part time job until went to uni (shameface) which might partly explain the “free money/cashback” confusion!

I got Europe back to front once and told DH that we had to drive through Germany to get to Spain ....we were living in Europe at the he time....so embarrassing

How is Gibraltar NOT an island???

look at a map maybe? How in any way is it an island?

Haven't read the full thread, so apologies if it's already been said- but it's simply not true about peppers going from trees to yellow to orange to red.

Most varieties of green pepper will ripen into red peppers, like a tomato! They don't go yellow or orange. The yellow and orange ones are different varieties- they may sometimes start green too, but the yellow and orange are their ripe colour- just like you can get yellow or orange tomatoes.

This thread is madness 😂 a lot of people still don’t know things they think they know.

Mine was saying " oh, back and forth round and round" that that's what "swings and roundabouts" literally do.

Also same difference. Like 9-2 or 10-8. Different route, same difference.

I was in my 30s before I realised Seahorses were real and not mythical.

For the older ones amongst you. Remember when Michelmore used to do the Holiday program on Sundays? I have a friend who was a Travel Agent at the time. She was very confused when a client wanted to go to a location she had seen on Sunday's program. It was in Italy and called Frankennestabof. Gentle questioning revealed Cliff had actually said "And now over to Frank and Nesta Bough who are touring in Italy"