things you didnt know, but should... mine is rice :/

[RainbowsAndFrogs]

i honestly have just had to google how rice is made. i wasnt sure if it was man made or grown. i know
i knew but wasnt 100%

honestly i have A levels and generally educated, although apparently not as much as i thought?

please tell me im not alone!

@Feminist10101

Really? Your 10 year old can change a tyre?

With someone finishing the tightening, yes.

I changed the oil in my dad’s car aged 6.

These are excellent life skills to have and the sooner the better.

(I refurbished a house - including plastering and replacing electrics at 18. I’ve fitted and tiled all 4 bathrooms in this house including the slate floors, fitted the wooden flooring throughout the downstairs myself. I learned from my dad and DD is learning from me. I don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t give their kids these skills. See also cooking, cleaning....)

I don't know many 10 year olds that can lift a car tyre, especially inflated. They're bloody heavy enough for us adults!

Wow! It’s enough to make you think a whale is a mammal or something... oh, wait...

The advert that nights in white satin was used in (80's I think) was for dulux satin paint

@Judashascomeintosomemoney

My one is, I genuinely always thought the song was Knights in white satin. It never occurred to me that satin would be really crap armour. Nights makes so much more sense. 🙄

I think that some comedians, maybe Morecombe and Wise, or Kenny Everett did a sketch about Knights in White Satin. I've always been aware that it's actually Nights, but have a monty python type sketch in my head of Knights in White satin. It would make sense bearing in mind the 70s style of comedy.

This would explain why so many people think it's Knights.

I didn't know that facade is pronounced fahsard. I always read it as fackaide.

Definition of a desert:- average less than 25 cm (9.75 inches) of precipitation each year. So they can be ice or sand

Found out today tomatoes are native to the Americas so there was no tomato sauce in Italy until 16th C.

Even more interesting to me is that potatos come from Americas, so were unknown in Europe before then.

From wikipedia

Potatoes were introduced to Europe from the Americas in the second half of the 16th century by the Spanish.

I remember in the first series of Blackadder, Baldrick was obsessed with turnips. Maybe that's because he lived before the potato age.

Ah, an excuse for a cartoon:

@Feminist10101

Anything to do with cars. Can't change tyres, check oil or even pop the bonnet!

Can’t? My 10 year old DD can do those things. She can also identify all of the warning lights on the dash, knows most of the rules of the road and different speed limits and the basics of how the engine, clutch and brakes work.

There’s absolutely no reason anyone old enough to drive can’t do the things you’ve listed.

Maybe now you know all these awesome practical skills, you could now work on your tone, empathy and humility?

Seriously ?

Yesterday 20:50 YellowEllis

It always blows my mind that when you have a kidney transplant they leave your original kidneys where they are and put the new one in your pelvis. I thought my husband was having me on but it's true.

Really didn’t know this and don’t know how I feel about it 😂

@Rockbird

I don't know what it is about that song, but I have yet to meet anyone who doesn't think it's Knights, including me!

Why on earth would knights be wearing white satin?

My ex boyfriend thought that Anne Robinson is Tony Robinson's Mum. I'm really not sure why given they're about the same age.

I definitely imagine knights on white horses wearing a weird combination of a kind of satin onesie with armour on top, kind of like a knight crossed with a power ranger. It's a much nicer image than some bloke singing about having sex in satin sheets.

@Tombero

I only found out the other day that Chevy Chase is a place as well as the actor.

Me too, during the trump election when they kept going over to Chevy Chase and I thought that was the reporters name and was stunned I kept saying to my husband what kind of person calls their child Chevy Chase (except the original CC parents) so googled to check if he was related to him to find out 1. It's the place they were referencing not the reporter.

1. The real CC isn't called that, it's a nickname!

Not one to brag but I'm feeling really intelligent right now.

Tis a new concept for me.

Nights in white satin? OMG who knew? Gosh it makes sense now but the music just sounded Knightly.

@carlaCox not the way he meant it!

He genuinely thought a solid barrier of a membrane/skin was created and he knew nothing about ovulation or periods. Had to take him with me to a drs appointment cos he thought our child wasn't his cos he didn't understand about lmp dates for dating pregnancy and he wasn't home date when I had lmp which is when a pregnancy is dated from even though you don't actually get pregnant until around ovulating usually weeks later which he was of course home for.

@OwlBeThere oh yes I can definitely understand that mangling welsh place names too

Chopping a carrot is also simple

If you're fit and healthy it is, my mum can no longer do this safely (arthritis) and nor can I (nerves affected by disability plus can't hold a knife normally and safely these days) if we attempted to do this we'd likely slice ourselves!

I even use adapted knives for the little bit of slicing I do these days of softer items like mushrooms. Mum hasn't really found anything that works for her yet.

@Zeewest Bartlett is great but I'd be all for dr Bartlett as president too, she's awesome and more pragmatic than him

@RandomLondoner did you not learn about potatoes being introduced to Europe re Tudor history? That's when I was first aware of this

@TheFormerPorpentinaScamander

BonnieDundee

I think the peppers thing is right. I discovered that on a similar thread to this a few years ago it is right. I was watching something on TV a couple of years ago and laughed when they said it. Until DS pointed out they were correct, and Google backed him up.

I used to hate singing Lord of the Dance at school as I thought it said."I'll eat you all wherever you may be
DS thought it was "I am the Lord of the dark settee" . It took me ages to work out what song he wanted! His favourite song for a while was Living on a Prayer, which he sang along to as "take my hand and maybe I'll swear..."

Other DS used to sing "stand in the river. Your money or your life".

My friends sister thought it was i am the lord of the damp settee!

@EllieQ

Posted too soon... they clamp and cut the cord after birth. They don’t knot it!

I had abdominal surgery a few years ago. To avoid scarring, they went in through my belly button. The surgeon told me afterwards he’d ‘tied it up again’. It was (is) definitely a very different shape to how it was before...

Prokupatuscrakedatus

Himbeere (raspberry) = Himmel (sky) + Beere (berry), just as Erdbeere (strawberry) = Erde (earth) + Beere (berry).
I used to think a Kindergarten (children-garden) meant a garden for kids to play in, i.e. an outdoor nursery. But the term was coined by Pestalozzi (I think), who thought of young children as plants who need to be cared for and cultivated. The German word for a nursery-school teacher is Kindergärtnerin, "a gardener of children".

@Molewoman

That's lovely - and it makes so much sense.

@drtyminded

had a heated discussion at work when i said that sultanas, currants, and raisins are all dried grapes

Currants are dried currants. As in redcurrants.

@chomalungma

Yes, German is such a practical language, isn't it? One of our family favourites is the word for diarrhoea (and I've just had to look up the spelling of that in English!) : Durchfall = durch (through) + Fall (fall).

Fuck.... should have googled. They're a bloody grape... I always thought the reason for them not being sickeningly sweet was because they're dried redcurrants.