Words and phrases that confused you as a child at school - or am I the only one?

[FortunesFave]

I clearly remember thinking 'what?" whenever the teacher mentioned "The Apparatus" during PE.

I didn't know what apparatus was! This was in primary school. She'd shout to the group of us in the 'big hall' "Don't touch the apparatus!" during the times when we were allowed to run around aimlessly during "PE lessons"

Then there was the mysterious "Cloakroom" I couldn't work out if this was a euphemism for toilets or if they meant the tiny bit of the corridor where we hung our coats.

Still not sure. Was I a lone weirdo who didn't understand basic stuff?

@TimeIhadaNameChange

I'd missed a day of junior school, and when I went back my mum took me to the HM's office, who said the class had been singing some Beetles songs in music.

I was really looking forward to singing about insects the next class and was really confused when we learnt a song called 'When I'm 64' instead!

Suddenly I feel ancient. Very ancient.

I thought you scored 'loves' in tennis (as in when the commentator announced 30-love, I assumed that it meant that someone had scored 30 loves, a bit like 30 points or goals etc.). I was quite old when I got to grips with the scoring system

@goldierocks

Hi *@iamalighthouse*

"I don't understand the word "condone" I can't condone that. I never get whether it's good or bad.,even when I look it up. .its a total blind spot"

It might help to change 'condone' to 'agree with' or 'approve of' whenever you hear it.

If you do not condone something, you don't approve / don't agree with it.

Hi @Bbq1

"She's no better than she ought to be" What does that even mean?! Confuses me to this day!!"

It's rooted in misogyny and the class system. It was often believed that women's morals were linked to the class she belonged to, with working class at the bottom.

To try and give a practical example - if a working class woman became pregnant out of wedlock, it wasn't as shocking as if an unmarried middle/upper class woman became pregnant because the working class woman was no better than she ought to be, i.e. "well what would you expect from a woman of that class?"

Living together out of wedlock would be another example from yesteryear. It just didn't happen in the upper classes. A working class woman 'living in sin' would also be referred to as no better than she ought to be.

Thankfully it's a dated term (with no male equivalent) which isn't widely used any longer!

Loving this thread BTW, thanks to everyone for sharing

Thank you for explaining that so well@goldierocks. It makes perfect sense now and I'm glad that I finally understand the meaning after all these years!

@igelkott2021

In infant school, I was confused by history text books that said 20th century. I thought how do they know what is going to happen because I thought if it was 1979 it was the 19th century :)

Im 60 and only got this in the past year

Police custody. I thought it was custard-y and was like being bunged until you admitted what you'd done wrong

GUNGED!!!

The headmaster in my junior school would regularly threaten to "decapitate" a misbehaving pupil.

I had no idea what he meant until I was much older but I knew it sounded nasty!

Gunge like Noel Edmonds used to?

I always thought teetotal meant you just drink tea. I still don't actually know what it means other than you don't drink. I mean I don't know what the word means.

Marmaladee it means someone who never drinks. Similarly I thought vegetarians only ate vegetables.

I remember when I was very young seeing signs in the multi-storey car park saying 'pedestrians be aware'. I thought pedestrians were some sort of nationality (in my head I pronounced it ped-us-tray-ons, like Australians!)

I could never work out what they had to be aware of!

I thought Air strikes were like teacher or postal strikes and friendly fire was some sort of friendly welcome

Oh lat post reminds me I thought a civil war was one where people were politely disagreeing....

@PoorPawsPickPawpaws

I never understood why all the TOILET signs were missing the I.

Even when it was explained to me that it was TO LET, I still didn't understand what that meant.

I recall as an adult driving by a site and seeing a huge TOILET sign, how odd thought I, it was only days later that I realised it was a TO LET sign where some wit had inserted an I !

@Bet01

When football scores were announced on the radio I always thought ‘on aggregate’ meant it was too wet to play on the grass so they had used a school playground or something

@50but17inside I came on here to say exactly the same thing, the only difference is I thought this until about two years ago and I'm 44.

My late mother, watching the horse racing on TV, thought it was very cruel that the horse Bar ran in every race, according to the odds table. My brother seriously asked, at about 8, where Random was, the place where they always go to draw the winner, The winner was drawn at random.

@FlyingBattie

Oh lat post reminds me I thought a civil war was one where people were politely disagreeing....

To be fair that sounds very British and exactly what I imagine it was like. Cavaliers: I put forward that the honourable gentleman is unfit to govern. Roundheads: I would like to remind the honourable gentleman that the king is unfit to rule.

Note cavalier does not, in this case refer to dogs.

@ElaborateSalad

Another hymn one. In primary school, before they splashed out on an overhead projector so we could read the words, I would merrily sing about the "Lord of the Dance Settee".

I was rather disappointed to discover that it was actually "Lord of the Dance, said he"

As a child I was puzzled by the hymn 'There is a green hill far away without a city wall', I wondered why a green hill would need to have a city wall.

A colleague once write on a report 'He has one outstanding piece of coursework' and the mother was thrilled until she found out at Parents' Evening that it meant one piece was missing.

@TheSlayer

I also had a friend who was scared of the loos because armitage shanks was written on the sinks. She misread as sharks.

@MirandaMarple

A teacher told us as a class to 'bring some elbow grease with you tomorrow', my friend replied 'my Dad might have some he works at Johnstone's Paints'

I think I was an adult before I knew what elbow grease meant :)

@Siepie

I've known several kids get confused when told to "go to Reception."

I forgot I'd done this! In year 2 the teacher told me to take a letter to reception, so I took it to the reception/foundation class.

Later in primary school, I had a teacher who used marbles in jars as good behaviour points. When another teacher said she'd "lost her marbles", one of my classmates replied "they're all in Miss X's classroom."

My children were in the school where their Daddy taught. After one assembley the Head said 'Mr J's children stand up and return to your classroom' and as well as his Year 5 class our llittle 5 years old also stood up.

@Treeballarae

Not quite the same, but I was an awkward child, tended to take the literal meaning from things so friends would say "see you later" and I'd say "no you won't" not understanding they just meant "cheerio".

Your PE comment also reminded me in PE no one ever explained the rules to netball, basketball, hockey etc but everyone seemed to know what they were doing so I was constantly shouted at for breaking the rules.

Maybe we were off sick the day everyone else were taught these things

Same. We didn't even play those sports at my tiny primary school; we just played rounders.

As a grandparent I had sat through our granddaughter's Christmas concert and afterwards I heard my daughter say to granddaughter 'Ask Mr Name if you can watch Twin Peaks after break'. How odd thought I, it was only later that I found out she'd said 'watch Tim Peak' who was launching that day!

I'm envious of those of you who were GD in netball, at least you got close to the goal. I was always placed in WD, nowhere near the goals, no use whatsoever.

I've just remembered another.

Our local paper was weekly and I would read the whole thing, including the sports round-up, as a pre-teen/young teenager. I always wondered why so many men playing in the local football team had the surname "Trialist". I remember moaning to my dad that they didn't even put the first initial so we could tell them apart.

@GromblesofGrimbledon

Oh I remember one. Fits with my name too! When I was a kid I never understood the theme tune to the Wombles.

The wombles of Wimbledon Common are we...

In my head it was

The wombles of Wimbledon, common are we...

I had heard of Wimbledon but I only knew "common" to mean lots of something. I thought it meant there where loads of wombles everywhere. Common or garden wombles. Then when Pulp's song "common people" was in the charts I thought it meant the wombles were common because they were scruffy and picked up litter to build their houses.

Snap!