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.

*Forgot to add I spend my whole life being brought up 15mins down the road from Hampton Court and attended a few of the shows.

You know that Loreal kids shampoo called "no more tears"....Only found out recently that "tears" rhymes with "pairs", not "ears

WTF! 🤔🤣

I thought that when men were going to have “The Chop” it meant having their balls cut off, like dogs!

I never knew why the moon shone - it's not that I couldn't have worked it out I just actually never thought about it. But when I did have my realisation I was in a packed bar and made a total fool of myself I still cringe.

And yes, I do know it doesn't actually shine!

I thought for years that dogging was illegal dog fighting!

I love all of these. My son used to think one of his teeth, a specific tooth, was his sweet tooth! Cos it tingled when he ate something sweet! he was gutted when I explained! And he always called something sickly as sickening! No idea why!!!

We call it shepherdless pie.

Took me until this year to really get my head around ante and post natal... actually, mostly just ante. For some reason, it was stuck in my head that ante was after... so now I remind myself the opposite is postnatal, and that definitely means after 😂

And as a kid I used to watch a lot of cowboy and Indian films with my grandad.. i was old enough to understand the concept of actors, and that their job was to act, and people got money for doing work, therefore they were getting paid to be in the film... was not old enough to understand that people dying on screen did not mean the actors died as well. I used to think about it an awful lot - who used to get their money for the job, and how awful to do a job and die and the money go to their family etc..
Major when i realised!

My OH watching many TV draws and competitions as a young teenager, the winners were chosen at "random".

He wanted to go there so he could get a prize,

That radishes don’t grow in bunches, and that you don’t have to switch the brake light on every time you brake when driving 🤭!

Ah the Shepherds Pie/Cottage Pie thing!! My mum used to give us "Shepherd's pie" made with beef... I didn't know until I was in my 20s that it should be lamb... I still maintain Shepherd's Pie should be beef as shepherds wouldn't eat their own flock 😉

thisisnotreallymyname
Your brake lights come on automatically when you press the brake pedal

@Undies1990 the moon ones not strictly true the moon and the earth spin at the same speed so you always see the same side of the moon from your house but if you went half way around the world you would see the other side :)

@thisisnotreallymyname what light were you turning on and off when you braked?

@Thisisnotmyrealname what do you mean? What lights are you turning on because this might be one of “those moments”?

you don’t have to switch the brake light on every time you brake when driving

What?!!!

I'm 64 and have just found out that red grapes don't make red wine and white grapes don't make white wine!!

@OrangePot jaywalking (as i understand it- could well be wrong as this thread shows!!) is when you cross the road at a non-crossing place, or when the green man isn't showing.

Gibraltar isn't an island. It's a peninsula.

@hahaha88
My partner thought masterbate was pronounced master as in sir/master!!

So how do you pronounce it????? Surely even if you pronounce bath as 'barth' you'd pronounce master and masturbate the same???

Graphista, I haven't read further than your post to see if someone else mentions this, but the reason you are told about Pepsi being available instead of the Coke you asked for is because of a term called Passing off. It's a trade description thing.
If a trading standards official came to your pub or restaurant and asked for a Coke, and you served Pepsi without asking first, you can get in serious trouble and fined for Passing off one product as another.

I was 12 before I knew 'Fast Car' was sang by Tracey Chapman and not a man 🤦‍♀️

My partner thought masterbate was pronounced master as in sir/master!!

That’s because it is.