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Original poster

To want to know something you wrongly believed was true all your life ?

729 replies

ChristineCagney11 · 27/05/2022 10:42

Posting to try and take our minds off bad things for a moment
I'm in my fifties someone on here posted about a "Party wall" a few weeks ago, I laughed because I thought they were mistaken, I have always thought the word for a wall between two properties was "Parting wall"
How did I not know ??
Also over the years when I've watched, usually men taking off the tops of beer bottles with their hands on US programmes.
I may or most definitely may have tried to do this myself not realising they have twisty tops in the US.
You ?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
21
Funkyslippers · 28/05/2022 21:13

WomanStanleyWoman2 didn't your mum send them Christmas cards with the name she knew them by?

NecklessMumster · 28/05/2022 21:20

Onlyhuman123 · 27/05/2022 11:20

Not me...my DD (now 16) thought that 'lmnop' was a letter in itself; up until about the age of 8. This was because they used to sing a song of the alphabet and 'lmnop' was sung quicker than the other letters so she always thought it was one letter. god love her.

And me...I thought there was a letter called 'ellamenapee'

Teenagehorrorbag · 28/05/2022 21:22

Coffeetree · 27/05/2022 11:09

When I was 45 my father told me that if you pee in a swimming pool, the water around you will turn blue. This is due to the chemical reaction of the urine's nitrogen and ammonia reacting with the chlorine.

When I was 45 I was talking about swimming with some friends and someone expressed worry about pee in the pool. I assured her no, you always know if someone has peed because you'll see the water turn blue around them.

Four decades. Well done Dad.

Havent RTFT so I expect someone has said this - but it can actually be true. Not in most pools, obviously - but I went on holiday to Kenya and visited a restaurant with a lovely pool, and someone's little girl had an accident.......

Not sure if it was blue or what colour it went - but you can definitely buy chemicals that will change colour if someone does wee in the pool!

Original poster
ChristineCagney11 · 28/05/2022 21:24

BuggerOffAndGoodDayToYou · 28/05/2022 20:03

It comes out of multiple holes (all on the nipple) a bit like a shower head! One of my “holes” always shot off to the right and when DD pulled away for a breather (which she often did) DH often got hit in the face 😂

Show quote history

Reminds me of the Victoria Wood quote (still very much miss you) about women peeing
"We have the power we just don't have the fine tuning"

OP posts:
lop32 · 28/05/2022 21:26

Can I confess that I BF two children and didn't actually know that until I read your post.

Original poster
ChristineCagney11 · 28/05/2022 21:32

Absolutely @lop32
Didn't know that either

OP posts:
Dougalneedsahaircut · 28/05/2022 21:32

ettabea · 28/05/2022 20:10

Some 40 years ago, Headmaster at my primary school held an assembly on the random subject of the evils of Nail-biting. He told us that worms would grow in the tummies of persistant offenders and nails would NEVER regrow.
I was a wide-eyed believer of these "facts" for many years, reciting them to nail-biting friends and family members.
Still remember it now, especially any time I'm a bit stressed and tempted to have a nibble on a nail!

In his defence he was probably referring to children getting threadworms through biting their nails 🤢

ZarquonsSandals · 28/05/2022 21:33

rollingmeadows · 28/05/2022 04:51

I thought turkeys had to wear little rubber gumboots (I think they are called wellies in the UK) to protect their little turkey feet against contracting a nasty disease that would ultimately lead to their suffering and death.

Tbf I got this idea from watching a very serious New Zealand farming tv programme, aged 7 that showcased a turkey farm with all these turkeys running around with their special little gumboots on. I didn’t know it was one of the April 1st ‘special editions’. My father finally told me when I was 15 that, indeed turkeys do not need to wear gumboots. I suspect he got a bit sick of me getting upset when I saw turkeys without their gumboots on.

I felt ripped off for years. How dare this very serious (and quite boring) farming programme tell me such porkies!!

I haven't RTFT yet so apologies if this is repetition but in the olden days turkeys and geese (I think) did used to have little shoes to wear as they were herded/driven along long roads. I'm thinking in Norfolk/Suffolk and taken further away by foot with a turkey/goose-herd making them all run along the road to their final destination where they'd be sold and eaten.

Original poster
ChristineCagney11 · 28/05/2022 21:42

'Tis absolutely true @ZarquonsSandals
I'm on an old drovers route in Wales

OP posts:
Colouringaddict · 28/05/2022 21:47

I have been reading a lot of these to my DH, it led him to confess that as a child he often heard about guerilla war fare, he was convinced that there was lots of massive silver backs running around with big guns and hand grenades, always wondered why it had never been filmed.

He asked me not to print his full name…. He was Grammar school educated 🙈

Englishrosegarden · 28/05/2022 21:50

I convinced my daughter that the big round bales you see in fields were tractor poos. She was mortified when she found out the truth as a teenager!

Original poster
ChristineCagney11 · 28/05/2022 21:52

@Colouringaddict
Absolutely brilliant
We're wandering into "The right to arm bears" type of thing
I'm all for it myself

OP posts:
RooLou85 · 28/05/2022 21:55

Rosehugger · 27/05/2022 11:54

Got to this point of the thread before I realised that you were all talking about centre parks and not what I originally read as Central Park.
I was wondering how this many people thought a park in NY was under a dome

ZarquonsSandals · 28/05/2022 21:55

Names commonly considered female but are also (or were historically male):
Shirley
Carol
Marion (John Wayne's real name)
Lyndsey (female version usually Lyndsay)
Meredith
Evelyn

I'm sure there are more but these are the only ones I can think of at the moment.

LuciiB · 28/05/2022 22:06

Absolutely

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 28/05/2022 22:11

My son always said "I beg your pardon" very fast, and we always wondered why he didn't just say pardon. He said he thought it was one whole word: ibegyourpardon

When our DS was little, and we were teaching him to say 'please', he took our reinforcement too literally. It would go like this:

DS: "Can I have a treat?"
Us: "Can I have a treat......??????"
DS: "Can I have a treat, PLEASE?!"
Us: "Good boy, nice manners!"

He figured that we were teaching him the full extended phrase you have to say to be polite and guarantee a positive response - rather than just affirming him when he got his request right.

Therefore, he started asking "Can I have a treat, please, good boy, nice manners?!"

Then, when we said "No, sweetheart, you've already had enough treats for now", he would be in floods of tears with "Waaaahhh!!! But I said 'yes, please, good boy, nice manners'!!!!!". It was so cute and it did sometimes work on occasion.

OneTC · 28/05/2022 22:12

Centre Parks not being in a dome. I really did think it was in a dome.

wtfShock

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 28/05/2022 22:14

Julian of Norwich was a woman, too.

As are Lady Colin Campbell and Princess Michael of Kent!

BrassyLocks · 28/05/2022 22:26

ZarquonsSandals · 27/05/2022 19:42

Almost the same here - as I child I thought it was 'darn settee'. I also believed 'darn' was a word said in place of a swearword, to express annoyance (e.g. "That darn cat from next door has stolen the chicken"). I was very confused as to why we sang this at Sunday School.

Show quote history

I don't know why we were made to sing hymns at school when none of them were ever explained. I thought "The Lord's my shepherd I'll not want" meant that you didn't want the shepherd being offered to you, which I thought was a bit ungrateful to the Lord...even though I didn't actually want or need a shepherd.

The last line of Morning Has Broken "God's recreation of the new day." My friends thought it was God's recreation day after creating the world. This was not helped by the fact that our break time was called 'rec time.'

BrassyLocks · 28/05/2022 22:28

Also, I can't picture what a 'bird wanking' might look like 😅

BrassyLocks · 28/05/2022 22:33

Aroundtheworldin80moves · 27/05/2022 14:54

I thought the star wars characters had Light Savers. (Lightsabres)

Also my Grandad told me that only male robins had red chests.

Um, that's what I thought too...until this moment (about robins) 😳

merryhouse · 28/05/2022 22:37

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 28/05/2022 22:14

Julian of Norwich was a woman, too.

As are Lady Colin Campbell and Princess Michael of Kent!

Well yes, but Lady Colin and Princess Michael have those names because of their husbands. (according to Wikipedia Lady Colin is a complicated case, but Colin isn't her given name anyway).

Purpleknickers · 28/05/2022 22:37

Unicorns are extinct just like dinosaurs 🤷‍♀️

toastfairy · 28/05/2022 22:37

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 28/05/2022 00:21

we sang this ALL the time in primary school, and I thought "the lord of the dance" what a great concept / name for God and that it was a super cheerful hymn. And then my dad told me that actually the lord of the dance was the devil and I believed him (up until today in fact).

That's not necessarily incorrect, actually. Sydney Carter, who wrote the song, stated that it was basically a mishmash (he didn't use that exact word!) of various religious/esoteric beliefs - loosely based on Jesus, Shiva and other faith figures. He also viewed Jesus as 'the piper', which is also a phrase used by some to refer to the Devil - a common belief in various sects/groups, who see them as two sides of the same coin. Carter himself was very surprised when many Christian churches adopted the song as he'd considered it would be too loose/heretical-leaning for them to accept it.

That is interesting thanks

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 28/05/2022 22:43

Well yes, but Lady Colin and Princess Michael have those names because of their husbands. (according to Wikipedia Lady Colin is a complicated case, but Colin isn't her given name anyway).

Oh, I know it's not the same thing - just pointing it out frivolously and adding to the brilliant melting pot of random information being discussed on this wonderful thread!

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