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.

That Guyana is not in Africa. I was early 40's.

sweetcheeksmahoaney

Yep, her name was Angharad. I'd never heard of it

I found out that Guyana isn't in Africa from Mumsnet. Actually I think I found out loads of this kind of stuff from Mumsnet!

@UniversalAunt
Angharod

Yes!! I went to a church with a little girl called Angharod. I always wondered why they always called her by her full name (Anne Harrod) until I came across the name written down as an adult

I thought there were two places, one called Magaluf and one called Malaguff. DH put me straight on that one 😂 I got a B in A level geography too.

Lol peppa at guerillas/gorillas.

If you think about it things were heard i.e. tv news rather than on the net so naturally you make mistakes as it's not written down for you to see?

Another one for me is learning to drive and clutch control. Driving instructor and hill telling me my clutch was disengaged and I was "free wheeling".

I thought he meant 3 wheeling and had visions of one wheel off the floor, think about those chases in films where the car goes down a narrow alley and is on its side possibly

Met dh and when driving discussed this. I asked " so which wheel is off the floor when 3 wheeling". He thought it was hilarious.

I remember being corrected by a non-native English speaker about my pronunciation of "th" which would generally come out as "f" or "d" e.g. dat instead of that, fanks instead of "thanks"

I honestly didn't believe it! Although I did grow up in London and English wasn't my parents' first language.

I still have problems with 'ears' 'eers' and 'airs' so actually all this 'No tears' shampoo things is going way over my head.

I live in West Yorks, about 10 miles from the M62, which runs w-e across England from Liverpool to Hull.

Our local football club were playing Cardiff at home. The man who ran the post office was a massive football fan and was going to the game. He was amazed that it was going to take 5 hours to get there, because he’d been to Wales once and it only took 2 hrs. The concept of Wales being more than a small town stuck onto the side of NW England had escaped him, despite being the postmaster!!

I'm not the full way through this yet but some of these are brilliant!

Many many years ago I asked my (ex) bf what a baby fish was called. Shouting through from the kitchen he advised me it was called a 'googlit'. I duely nodded my head at his wisdom

I love this

Also love how many people have been making Shepherds pie with beef all their lives (like me) 🤣🤣

My name is Angharad, ( that's the correct spelling by the way) and I used to get the Ann Harrod thing a lot and people would think I was in a senior position in jobs I've worked in due to the formality of using 'both my first and second name'. I was the secretary or bottom of the wrung in most of these jobs so quite funny mistake

Maybe it's "no more tears" (as in rips) if you're the sort of person who says your DC is having a gap yar before university? Also, does anyone remember the MNer who dripped it in her own eyes to test the claim before using it on their PFB?

These I also learnt on Mumsnet - there is a little arrow on your car's fuel gauge which points to which side your filler cap is on. Also in a cardboard box containing clingfilm etc, there is a little tab at each side to hold the roll in place. My mind was blown

I love Mumsnet!

Someone please explain the caretaker name from a few pages back?
And what am I missing about the chicken joke??

there is a little arrow on your car's fuel gauge which points to which side your filler cap is on

Yes I discovered not long ago that when your petrol warning light comes on, the side that the pump is on is the side your filler cap is.

To be honest I've just checked that on Google and I think I may be totally wrong.

Please ignore me, I didn't even know what shepherds pie was made from.

To the PP asking clarification - it definitely is "chest of drawers" as opposed to chest of draws 👍🏻

Reticent doesn't mean reluctant, it means unwilling to communicate or reserved 😶

no more tears

Baby shampoo has a ph of 7, which is the ph if the eye. This means that if the shampoo gets into the eye it does not sting.

Most shampoos have ph of 5 or 6, which is more acid, and woudl sting.

The problem is that a baby's skin has a ph of 5.5. So if you use baby shampoo, and also no more tears baby wash, then it won't sting the baby's eyes, but it will massively dry out the baby's skin.

It defintely refers to eyes, not rips, it is all there in the advertising and in the exlanation of why it is no more tears on the packaging.

and now to blow you mind about birds.

1. birds who roost have muscels in their feet that work the other way round to our muscles. So, when you relax your hand it unfurls and lies flat. But a bird's foot, when relax tightens up into a tight grip, so then can hold on to the branch when asleep.

1. nests are only made in spring for eggs, then abandonded.

1. some birds don;t land at all. I think it is swallows who, once they have left their nest as a few weeks old, never land. The feed as they fly, and drink (swoop down to scoop water) and sleep on the wing. For 2 years they do not land at all. They then reach maturity and land to build a nest.

@InAShizzle

Cardi B = Bicardi

How do you pronounce Aiofe? I have wondered this for a long time. Does the fe make a V sound. Is it Ava in English?

That you can have a light period-like bleed in the first month EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE PREGNANT.

That one had some quite serious consequences

I used to think "no return within 2 hours" meant you couldn't come back to the car within 2 hours as well!

Laughing about Penelope - I thought you pronounced Persephone "Persafohn" as a child!

I also though Center Parcs had a big dome. My DH said he went to one once and got a horrible cold there because everything was closed in! Was he winding me up?

And not as an adult but as a child I used to get very confused about books that said 20th century on them in the school library because I thought how can they know what's going to happen in the 20th century when we are in the 19th century (thinking that if it was 1978 it was the 19th century not the 20th)

Sorry but the petrol arrow/light thing isn't universally true. Some cars may have it but not all of them. Neither of mine do, for example.

fuel gauge thing is an urban myth.

It applies ot some car models and not others

How do you pronounce Aiofe?

Eefa, an f instead of a v sound

@tinty, Aoife is pronounced 'Eeefa' to rhyme with 'reefer'.