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?

@Faranth

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

I was having just this conversation with DP the other day! We went to the same secondary school but several years apart. He was saying how great x and y PE teachers were, and I said they were awful, never actually taught us anything, just expected everyone to know the rules. He was in the county team for hockey, and had been taught all the rules at primary school. I always played GD in netball, I was shit at it, but I knew I was only allowed in the semi circle and I didn't have to worry about if I was 'travelling' with the ball or whatever it is, because no matter what I did I got yelled at.

Hockey they taught us how to use the stick, ball control etc, but not what the rules of the game are?! Then yelled at everyone all the time when we broke the mysterious rules. Surely there's a point where you think 'hang on, none of these 30 kids know what the fuck they're doing, perhaps they don't know the rules?' rather than they're all trying to cheat on purpose?!

And bloody gym - climb the rope. Sorry, what? How? I just used to jump a bit, grab on, and dangle for a few seconds. So did everyone else. I've still got no idea how you climb a rope (or indeed, why I'd want to!) other classes sometimes you'd see a kid climb all the way to the top, like magic.

So very weird that they didn't actually teach us anything. The main concern seemed to be forcing us to go in the communal shower.

I used to feel so lost and stupid all the time with ball games. Now I just feel annoyed at the inadequate teaching. I was fine at other subjects

I think the "away" bit of "away" in a manger just means "a long distance from here."

@BalloonSlayer

I think the "away" bit of "away" in a manger just means "a long distance from here."

Like "without a city wall" is outside the walls. I wondered for years why they had to tell us the green hill didn't have any walls!

@dworky
You beat me to it. I was going to say that I though worthless and priceless meant the same!!! For years...

@MistyGreenAndBlue

To this day I dont really understand "Away in a manger" I know what a manger is but why is Jesus 'away' in it? Still don't get what this is trying to say.

I know what you mean! However in Scotland it works because we say "wean" for child (rhymes with Wayne) so you can think of it as " a wean in a manger"

Whenever I saw the 'To let' signs I understood what they meant BUT when it was followed by 'apply within' I was stumped because they never specified how long you had to apply. Apply within what? A day, a week, a month? Didn't occur to me they might mean within THE BUILDING.

Understandable confusion! I remember doing reading to my Mum when I was little and reading that word as "appley" as in " like an apple" . I had a Beatrix Potter book called Appley Dappley's nursery rhymes so I probably was thinking of that. No idea what I thought it meant though.

My DM tells a story of when she was in a rural primary school with a drop toilet that was emptied with a wheelbarrow by a man called Mr Riley once a week.
She thought "The Life of Riley" made no sense as an expression at all!!

I used to feel so lost and stupid all the time with ball games. Now I just feel annoyed at the inadequate teaching. I was fine at other subjects

I feel exactly the same @CatMuffin and reading this thread I realise it has bothered me for years. I find it interesting that it seems to have been quite common. I wonder why?

When I moved schools aged 7, I was told on the first day that we were split into Houses. I spent the whole day worried I wasn't going home...

I did not come from a home where daily prayers were the norm, but attended Primary School at a time when C of E was the assumed default setting, including the Lord's Prayer in assembly every day.
I was a fairly bright child, so quick-witted enough to pick up the words more or less, but they were never explained to me until much later.
So I could understand, "Give us this day our daily bread": asking the Almighty to take care of our physical needs. But the bit I said with fervour was, "The liver is evil". It was one school dinner I hated, and it seemed logical to me to point out that, if He was providing of His bounty, I really felt He should be advised that bit of the catering did not suit my taste.
Similarly, the National Anthem. I merrily sang "Send her Victoria", knowing she had been a previous monarch, but vaguely wondering why the current queen needed this moral support.
When I joined the Brownies, it was a church pack, so church parade once a month. Full-on Anglican Evensong with the assumption that we knew what was going on. I picked up the prayers quite easily, but the collect which baffled me included the phrase, "Both our hearts shall be set to obey Your commandments" . (The comma after "both", and the following phrase "and also", took a while to filter through).

I sobbed my heart out on the first day of school. The teacher told me to go and wash my hands in the toilet. I stood prone in the bathroom block, wanting to be a good girl and do as the teacher said but also not wanting to stick my hands in the horrible toilet water.

No idea why I didn’t realise she meant sink! Perhaps it’s because our toilet and bathroom were in different rooms of the house so I had never heard that phrase before.

@TheQueef

Another GD here. There seems to be a pattern. It's only taken fifty years and this thread to enlighten me that there was, indeed, a pudding club and I was firmly in it.

Is this the right place to tell you that being "in the pudding club" means pregnant?

Another poster mentioned 'apply within', I used to wonder whether it was full of apples, smelt of apples, and generally what made it so "apple-y" inside.

@BalloonSlayer

I think the "away" bit of "away" in a manger just means "a long distance from here."

Correct. It means “Far away, in a manager” just like when a story begins with. ‘Long, long ago in a far away land’ etc etc.

I really don't want to be pedantic - but I'm going to be. Netballers - you all played Goal Keeper if you stayed in the semi circle....(you were actually allowed in the whole third....but maybe didn't venture this far).
Goal Defence starts on the line and marks the Goal Attack from the other team. Directly opposite them are wing attack marked by wing defence.

Goal defence was my favourite position because you got to run around but didn't have the pressure of scoring goals.

I was taught the rules by a lovely parent who ran netball club at my junior school.

[quote TheFoundations]@Puffalicious

I think all hopeless people are GD, but all GD aren't hopeless.

You know, like all Alsatians are dogs, but all dogs aren't Alsatians.

Probably you were just dead good at stopping the ball going in the net.[/quote]
You're far too generous! I definitely was a bit shit. I think they struggled to get folk to join! Love the Alsation analogy- I'm pinching that!

@Puffalicious

Maybe you were like me, then... I'm taller than everybody else, so I think my skill at Goal Defense was that if the opposition took a shot, my head would be in the way.

Sing, Hosanna, Sing, Hosanna
Sing, Hosanna to the King of Kings

I thought we were encouraging a girl called Hosanna to sing, in an increasingly emphatic way. Sounds like Joanna, must be a girls name.

I still don't know what Hosanna means.

I thought we were encouraging a girl called Hosanna to sing, in an increasingly emphatic way

Oh. I thought that still, until you just made me look it up!

"Shitting through Ivah Needle" is it a place? A person? Nope just a yorkshire accent! 🤣

@AnUnoriginalUsername

"Shitting through Ivah Needle" is it a place? A person? Nope just a yorkshire accent! 🤣

Ooh! I've never had this argument settled.

Does it mean diarrhoea or a constipated poo?

I always argued that a constipated poo is like threading a needle - it has to be sort of narrow and robust to go through the hole . But my antagonist stated that no, diarrhoea was the only thing that could go through the eye of a needle because it was soft and pliant.

@RussianRuby

I think I was in my twenties when I had the lightbulb moment that Artic drivers drove articulated lorries and not a brand of trucks called Arctic (as in polar bears etc)

I'm 34 and have a master's degree and your post was the first time I realised this.

It still goes on.... We moved into our lovely new classroom, which had a walk-in cupboard at one end. As we merrily put equipment in its new places, items not currently needed were carried by the boys into the walk-in cupboard, so I guess I thought they'd worked out that it was a cupboard large enough to walk into.
Until one of them asked, a bit later, "I know this is a weird question, but what is a walking cupboard?" and from the embarrassed looks on other faces, he was just saying what many of them were thinking!
A friend of mine, a talented cartoonist, drew a picture for the cupboard door: a walking cupboard, a running total (page of calculations with legs moving at speed), a sitting target (archery bullseye relaxing on an armchair with a cup of tea) etc.
When we learned the verse before "When Father papered the parlour" I realised that at least one child was singing,
"Our parlour needed papering
And Pa said it was waste
To call a paper hammer in
And so he made some paste"
I guess he equated "paper hammer" with "chocolate teapot"
The class were painting the verses of "Green Grow the Rushes Oh!" for a mural. One volunteered to paint "twelve for the twelve apostles" and as the picture emerged, I had to ask what the square objects were. Twelve parcels.

I'm another person who got the Womble words wrong. It thought it "The Wombles of Wimbledon/Come on and wee".

@KnottyKnitting I always thought ‘To Let’ said ‘Toilet’ as well! When I was growing up it wasn’t uncommon for letters to fall off signs and stay like that for years, so I just thought that’s what had happened. After a while though I did start to wonder how so many ‘Toilet’ signs had lost their ‘I’ in exactly the same way!

This thread is so funny. Was laughing over my porridge this morning and just finished reading over lunch. I also did the toilet/ to let thing and the common wombles. And all team sport was and is a mystery to me.