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.

Until a few years ago, I thought you could choose whether you wanted yellow or white number plates on a car. I only realised after being sat in a traffic jam for yonks that they are white at the front and yellow at the back... still, I like to think that if I got a new car I'd have a choice...

I’ve just remembered that when I was young I had the opposite of a PP’s jaywalking/streetwalking confusion in that I’d heard the word streetwalking, and knew of the concept of jaywalking so thought that street walkers were people who crossed the road illegally.

Not many people say mar-sterbate do they? Usually mas to rhyme with gas.

But then I would say master to rhyme with pasta, as I have an accent that uses a short a in glass, path, bath etc

Same Hotpot

To clear up confusion, anyone can eat in a restaurant and have the theatre menu. All it means is it is served at a time before theatre shows usually start, that they will be quick serving courses as they know you are on a deadline, and it is often relatively cheap.

I thought that when people said ‘making ends meet’ they were saying ‘making hens meat’. Don’t ask!

Frazzles

I have never actively noticed that cars have different colour plates on front and back. Though as soon as I read your post I knew it to be true.

I am 30 and have been driving 13 years

Also though the Elgin marbles were spherical. Can’t eradicate the image.

And I was about 25 before I realised that the “estranged wife” hadn’t gone mad and been locked up in an asylum...🙄

I figured out today that the saying is 'If the cap fits'... always thought it was 'If the CAT fits'... which makes no sense whatsoever

I thought Karl Marx was something to do with the Marx Brothers until last year (I’m 40)

I only learned recently that we pay for water

I brought my first house at 24 (am now 33) and and only found out a year ago. Luckily my husband was more clued up than me and had been paying it!!!

My friend ..
didn’t know Robin Hood was a real person
Didn’t know the beginning of eastensers was a map of the east end
Thought pay per view was paperveiw - you order it in paper view ( like a story / written word) 100% serious

She also didn’t know not to put a pie with the foil on in the microwave or to remove the water from potatoes before you mash them!!!!

I'm 56 and found out only the other day that prison and jail are not the same thing

FFSFFSFFS for many years I thought it was Eni (pronounced eenie) d’Blyton. So eenie da blyton! I’ve absolutely no idea why. I suppose I never noticed Enid Blyton on the front of all my books!!

Prison and jail are not the same thing? What?!

I though Sinn Fein was a person, glad someone early in thought the same!

I thought chubby brown and ken Dodd were the same person playing different personalities

I thought it was Freddie Stare not Fred Astaire

I thought gunpoint was a place (also admitted by an actor in a film and this is what alerted me to being wrong 😬)

My friend stoped at a farm offering free range eggs or as she understood it FREE 'range eggs'

Hang on, how are prison and jail not the same?

Only found out last week (via my 10 year old son) that bananas are in fact herbs.

We all said we didn’t believe him. Googled it. Have now apologised

From Google, the difference between jail and prison. Who knew?!

At the most basic level, the fundamental difference between jail and prison is the length of stay for inmates. Think short-term and long-term. Jails are usually run by local law enforcement and/or local government agencies, and are designed to hold inmates awaiting trial or serving a short sentence.

Yeah I think jail is normally holding cells until sentencing to a prison. Is that right?

That the numbers on a toaster signifies actual minutes not just a “Number 2 toast”.

Apparently so Fowles. Top marks. How could I get to 56 and not know that?

@bubblegumunicorn 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

This isn't true. The "dark" side of the moon always faces away from the whole of the earth. It won't ever face the earth even on the other side. Here's a handy animation:

Hand/Hang gliding???!!! What...shuffles off..muttering. Wtf is Flamin Yon? (im 47 ffs... going to google...