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.

PRUNES ARE DRIED PLUMS???!!! WHAT? My whole life is a lie

[b]Tallulah[/b] my brother in law thought Sinn Fein was a person too. He was in the army at the time stationed in northern Ireland...

I didn't realise Kuala Lumpur was a real.place... thought it was where the oompah lumpas came from in roald dahls Charlie and the chocolate factory

Bold fail

My friend never used to park anywhere that said "no return within[insert time here]" if she was just popping into a shop because she thought it meant that was the minimum amount of time she had to be parked there. We always wondered why she used to say parking was so bad in town when we always managed to find some

She had to repeat herself too as the person on the other end didn't understand that she was asking for Siobhan

To be fair though there's no way to know how to pronounce certain names or place names unless someone tells you, why is it funny that she hadn't heard the name spoken out loud? Can you pronounce every non phonetic word in every language, I certainly can't and I don't suppose many people can.

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!

I still don’t know if it’s chest of drawers (what I always say) or chest of draws which I seen written before?

Oh and just thought of another ..

I used to think rolemops where “roll ‘em ups” because that’s how they are in the jar.

I try not to make fun of people for admitting they don't know things:
xkcd.com/1053/

My OH actually thought that wasps made chutney.

Oh, and pronouncing gilet properly was a very recent discovery.

Apparantly it's not 'Gill' (as in rhymes with bill) - 'et' (rhymes with net).

It wasn't a kind friend who pointed it out gently, either. It was a SMIRKING staff member (I don't blame her).

"Excuse me, have you got any GILL-ets?"
"Eh, do you mean jee-lay?

Learning stuff here! I thought Bambi was a girl too - I obviously never saw the end of the film then.
I cannot stop saying chester draws or chimleys.

I was shocked when I discovered that Franks and Archer, the duo my mum and auntie liked, was actually Frank Sinatra.

FFSFFSFFS As a child,I thought that the 'Enid Blyton' on the front cover of her books said 'Guide Burton'!. In my defence,I was only about 8 or 9 at the time. It took my DMum to put me straight!

People who say Breggzit makes me want to slap them.

My pronunciation of homogeneity at uni caused great hilarity. As did paradigm para-dig-em I'm still not sure about homogeneity as it's not an everyday word for me

I personally loved discovering that the names in Harry Potter were meaningful. Sirius was an animagnus that changed into a dog. Sirius is the Dog Star. Others too but can't think off the top of my head.

I was always convinced that the mother was cheating on her husband whenever I used to hear the song "I saw mummy kissing Santa Claus", the dirty strumpet...

Finally thought logically about that and had a penny dropping moment in my early thirties, when I had a small child of my own 😕

I thought ‘several’ meant seven times. I did think it oddly specific, eg “I said it several times” “on several occasions” etc.

I was 15 when I realised it did not mean seven.

As I said earlier, I've learned a lot from these threads! I am happy to laugh at myself when I've made a faux pas, as are my friends.

the pepper one

Another Enid Blyton one here....... for yeeears thought it was Cried Blyton!!!???

But... But... re-num-erate

I'm 38...

And I've every liklihood of getting Irish names wrong too (despite being half Irish) caughtinanet but I think we just couldn't believe that she'd not come across a Siobhan before.

Also I never know what to call a vegetarian shepherds/cottage pie

Oh and I thought Penelope was pronounced Pen-elope. I’d never heard the name before reading it in a book.

I didn't realise Kuala Lumpur was a real.place... thought it was where the oompah lumpas came from in roald dahls Charlie and the chocolate factory

This is brilliant - thank you PP