Silly stuped things your younger self thought was true 🤪😳

[Justjackie]

I will go first...first job after leaving school..thought you paid tax then at end of year got it all back! I thought it was some kind of loan to the government 😳 heard mam and dad mention getting '-tax-back' over the years and thought that was what happened!

@DaphneduWarrior

“ kidneys and tongue that you eat aren’t really kidneys or tongue”

What are they??

No they are those things but I was told they weren’t and I believed it

I knew what you meant

@CheekyWeeShite (love that name and I bet you are one too!!)

Yes as a child my grandmother sometimes invited us for Sunday afternoon tea and there was often sliced tongue and salad. I thought she was so posh and the tongue was something we never had at home.

I ate it happily as thought I was getting something special. Oh I remember the day I learned it was real tongue from a cow's mouth! Never touched it since.

We had beast heart, I think it's a cows heart, it was nice but now I just think yuck!

Sweet breads are not croissants and tea cakes. This was learned much later in life, when it was too late. 🤢

that you stuck sanitary towels to your fanny not your gusset

Narwhals are real???!!!

Before I started secondary school, I thought 'sex education' was going to be a timetabled subject, like English or maths. I was really disappointed when I was given my timetable on the first day

Sweet breads are not croissants and tea cakes. This was learned much later in life, when it was too late

Ogden Nash wrote a poem on this very subject:

This sweetbread here in front of me
Is not what it purports to be.
Says Webster in one paragraph,
It is the pancreas of a calf.
Since it is neither sweet nor bread,
I think I'll take a bun instead.

@CeciledeVolanges

Yes *@GinaJaffacake* it’s pretty much everything except Mary Land!

I’ve just remembered a couple more - I used to think that you got pregnant by praying really hard for God to give you a child! I also just have no idea about geography. When I got into Durham and then looked at a map I was surprised by how far North it is! Looking at a map is always eye opening as well - a succession of “I didn’t know that was there”s.

I laughed very hard at “Olivia Newt” as well.

On a similar subject, I always feel like Halifax should be an affluent town in the Home Counties. I know it’s neither, and learned this many years back, but my brain still hears Halifax and associates it with Salisbury,

St. Alban’s, Hemel Hempstead etc.

@5128gap

According to my mum, I was convinced that little girls grew up to be male. I would say 'When I'm a grown up man...'

Our toddler is convinced that in the future, all these things are going to happen (or at least highly plausible):

He will be big like mummy.
He will be gigantic like daddy.
Daddy will be a little boy.
Mummy will be a little girl.
He will be a big boy.
He will be a big girl.
Baby sister will be a little girl.
Baby sister will be a little boy.
Mummy will be a baby.
Daddy will be a baby.
He will be a baby again.

E.g. "When I am gigantic like daddy and a little girl, I will X. When you are a little girl baby, you will Y."

Sorry, sweetie, growing/ageing only goes one way...

@SinkGirl

I also though that there was a place called Arkinsaw and had no idea it was actually Arkansas.

Also thought Americans eat something called baloney, but it’s actually Bologna. They just pronounce it weird.

I used to imagine baloney/Bologna as a big ladle of Bolognese sauce (i.e. tomato and mince) in a sandwich. Like a sloppy Joe, I think. Could never work out how that matched up with the famous paper bags they took their lunches in!

I also used to think in (late?) primary school that the man put his penis in the woman's belly button. I had a fairly accurate image of the, uh, movement and stiffness (unlike some posters!) but really thought it went in the belly button. It's only just occurred to me that I never thought about men having belly buttons too. I knew they came from the "cord" that attached you to your mummy being cut, so I guess I thought the cord went from baby's belly button to mummy's belly button and therefore that's the place you'd make a baby?!

I also thought that hens laid eggs and the cockerel then went and stuck its penis in them to fertilise it.

Reminded by the Gary Barlow post..... regarding benignly clueless parents.....

In my mid-teens Spandau Ballet came to our town and I clamoured to be allowed to go as at least half my year were going. My Mum flatly refused, partly because I was an only child and she was pretty strict / over-protective. I was gutted. Especially when......

A few weeks later after the concert and I'd heard what a great time everyone had, ad nauseam, we had Top of the Pops on and on came Spandau Ballet, in their sharp shiny suit phase with button holes no less, and Mum started waxing lyrical about why couldn't my taste in music be more like that..... through gritted teeth and utter incredulity I said "But Mum - THAT'S SPANDAU BALLET" and she looked at me and said, oh, I thought you were talking about some weird avant garde dance troupe that wasn't at all suitable.

I learned a valuable lesson in both history and how to communicate very specifically!

@teaandcustardcreamsx

Tandem prams were torture chambers in which the child in the back would be eaten I mean in my defence, my best friend was the middle of three and the naughtiest out of all of them so used to get put in the back so that’s why I thought that ...

Used to think Dubai was a country not a city

That in high school it’d all be singing and dancing and all of us in it together - like high school musical. Despite numerous warnings from older cousins I didn’t believe them. I was shocked with what it was really like. I didn’t have the worst experience but not the best either!

That I’d fall in love and meet the perfect man etc etc live happily ever after etc. Sadly they’re useless IME!

Cats are girls and dogs are boys

Couldn’t get pregnant out of marriage and likewise with sex, just putting it in and leaving it there!

TIL Dubai isn't a country!

My 14 year old DD has only just clicked that I lied about it being illegal to drive on the motorway with your windows down. She refused to believe I had made that up one day for fun because I was cold and wanted her to wind the window up.

[quote CeciledeVolanges]@GinaJaffacake yes, I didn’t know how to pronounce Arkansas until I was twelve. Or Maryland, for that matter, I thought it was Mary Land.

Tories is from a Gaelic word I believe, meaning something like bandit? Or thief maybe. I do like the idea of a Conservatory Party though![/quote]
I thought Ar Kansas and Ar Kan saw were two different states!
And how is Maryland pronounced?

On a similar subject, I always feel like Halifax should be an affluent town in the Home Counties. I know it’s neither, and learned this many years back, but my brain still hears Halifax and associates it with Salisbury,

But Salisbury isn't in the Home Counties...

Kind of proves my point then.

When we went to sleep god would switch off all the lights so the whole world stopped and slept and then in the morning he would switch it back on .

My mind was blown when I realised how night and day worked and found it fascinating that when we slept other people woke up to start their day.

@5128gap, It varies with accent. A lot of Americans say, Merrylund. In the South, they often say, Merrylaaand.

I am also astonished to find out that it's not illegal to drive with the interior lights on. Why was my mum such a nutter about it, then?! I'm sure she told us it was! (I've passed my test but don't drive, btw)

@EggyPegg

On a similar subject, I always feel like Halifax should be an affluent town in the Home Counties. I know it’s neither, and learned this many years back, but my brain still hears Halifax and associates it with Salisbury,

But Salisbury isn't in the Home Counties...

I’ve never been entirely sure where the ‘home counties’ are.

One of the things that I (fairly recently) learned through Mumsnet is that a pony is not a young horse that hasn’t reached full size yet

One Christmas as a child my dad told me the neck from the turkey giblets was its willy. It was a joke. I didn’t know this was a joke until I was mid 30s after repeating it to somebody one day!