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.

There was a similar thread to this a while ago and one particular one has stuck with me and I keep repeating it as it's so funny - someone said she had thought that when she heard about people killing themselves by putting their head in the oven, that they had cooked their heads to death. She didn't realise they didn't actually light the oven and it was the gas that killed them. And she was always puzzled why someone would choose such an uncomfortable way to die.

I know it's a macabre subject but it still makes me giggle when it pops into my mind.

This thread making me laugh ! Didn't know the ABBA one either, but let's face it, took me ages to realise Will.I.Am was, William fgs.

Not me I promise, but I was on a tour of Kilmainham Gaol and an idiotic American man asked why during the potato famine the Irish hadn't just eaten rice or pasta. The look on the guides face was priceless!

That water goes down the plughole in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere and straight down on the equator.

Except that’s not true. Water going down plugholes is too small to show the coriolis effect, it’s much more affected by the shape and topography of the sink it’s going down. The coriolis effect is why tropical storms rotate opposite ways in north and south hemispheres though, they re big enough to show the effect.

thecatneuterer I used to think that about ovens too - that you cooked your head until you died. I still remember the lightbulb moment and the relief that I hadn't discussed my previous belief with anyone . I don't think it was me on the previous thread, but I do surprise myself sometimes!

That penguins can't fly

I thought the Dark Ages was so-called because there wasn’t much light...

My husband LOVES to tell this story.

Any minute now someone is going to say they didn’t know Gibraltar wasn’t an island, that ALWAYS comes up on these threads!

That the fridge dial isn't the temperature 🤦‍♀️

1. That the 'strangers' we were warned about at school in the early 80s were paedophiles. Pretty useless campaign given that in the overwhelming majority of cases the abuser is known to the victim.

2. That multiplication was repeated addition of the same number.
   When teaching them at school at school no one bothered to explain the principle behind 'tables' so the relationship between the numbers was always abstract to me, i had no idea why say, 5x7 was 35.

Or the pineapples. That's a common one.

Garth Funkell and PorTAKKAbin have made me properly chortle!

I can't stop saying porTAKKAbin and laughing!

Remunerate?! No such word, I would have said until this thread- I've learnt loads. Chester drawers hillare

One from many years ago that still sends me into stupid giggles is when my uni flatmate was responding to a job advertised in the local paper. She called the number and asked to speak to "Sigh-oh-ban"! She had to repeat herself too as the person on the other end didn't understand that she was asking for Siobhan!
Oh my God, my other flatmate and I were screaming and couldn't bloody breathe for laughing so hard!
She was known for this type of blunder... God bless her - she's brilliant!

an idiotic American man asked why during the potato famine the Irish hadn't just eaten rice or pasta.

It was widely reported at the time that on their state visit to Windsor, Nancy Reagan got little sleep and asked why they built the castle so close to the airport?

*I recently wondered aloud to a friend in a supermarket about why I never understood why red peppers/capsicums were more expensive than green.

She said "erm, maybe because it takes them longer to grow so they can harvest green ones quicker"

Me 😲 "I thought they were different varieties"

Her "Noooo. They grow green, then mature yellow then onto orange then finally red"

Mind blown.

BIL used to say "trickle treat" until way into his 30's when I pointed it out.

ha ha ha at magic cream

I want that. Always.

I did a post like this a whole back, it was great.
Someone my friend worked with thought Irag was somewhere in the midlands, possibly near Wales.
And then there's my whole saga involving the word 'ballache'

Might be what a PP meant when they mentioned clocks earlier, but I’ve only recently realised that the clocks don’t go back/forward every 6 months...

I had assumed we were in GMT as long as we were in BST (I’d never counted to to be fair. Just never thought to...)

I'm glad I've name changed recently, I've been sitting here for about 2 hours saying flaming Yon and the penny has only just dropped

What's this about batteries?

Since Brexit has been in the news all the time I’ve found out people pronounce negotiation as negosssssiation and brexit as breggcit.

"Pull me close, now take it down, son"

I love this thread. Garth Funkel!!!

Embarrassingly I could probably fill this thread but would have to NC It's not that I misunderstand or mishear stuff but I'm very very gullible and believe anything DH people tell me. Which is fine, until I repeat this information to others.

Remember when the curtains used to close and re-open across the cinema screen in between the trailers and the film? I wisely advised my friend this was because they were changing the screen

DH also told me the commentators at sports games were (oh god this is embarrassing) hidden behind the big thing on the ceiling which tells the time (see picture for full appreciation of my stupidity). I kept asking how they didn't fall out. I was about 30

I have a friend who says and writes Trick or Treat as trickle treat. Every Halloween he emails us and our friends to ask who's coming "trickle treating"? Haven't the heart to tell them