Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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
Daftasabroom · 27/05/2022 15:35

I once made a phone call to someone called si-o-barn, Siobhan was obviously a bit put out.

Original poster
ChristineCagney11 · 27/05/2022 15:36

Oh and I've just remembered, when texting first became a thing, I was absolutely one of those people that thought LOL was lots of love.

OP posts:
Cattenberg · 27/05/2022 15:38

I’ve mangled a few Irish surnames when talking on the phone. Meagher, Mahon, Creagh…

ImplementingTheDennisSystem · 27/05/2022 15:38

My mum told me that your blood is blue, but turns red when exposed to oxygen. She really meant it too (please don't be mean, she's not formally educated).
I repeated this understanding to my A-level science teacher and she laughed in my face! My mum swore blind - how was I to know (pre-internet remember).

Mummyneedsacoffee · 27/05/2022 15:39

ReachedTheEndofCake · 27/05/2022 15:30

@Mummyneedsacoffee ooooh I’ve done some googling. Arkansaw (with w) in Wisconsin! Learning new things, thanks 😁

Sorry didn’t realise you had already replied again 😂😁x

Original poster
ChristineCagney11 · 27/05/2022 15:42

@ImplementingTheDennisSystem
I can't prove your mother wrong 🤷

OP posts:
Original poster
ChristineCagney11 · 27/05/2022 15:45

I am joking please no angry science peeps

OP posts:
Msloverlover · 27/05/2022 15:51

Wall plus are not called wall plugs
slugs are not homeless snails

(both were discovered in the last 2 years)

haggisaggis · 27/05/2022 15:56

I was in my thirties before I realised that the road sign for loose chippings is not actually a big hammer!

axolotlfloof · 27/05/2022 16:04

StageRage · 27/05/2022 11:17

Until recently I thought the teams on University Challenge were actually on top of each other.

Well me too, although I hadn't really thought about it very much.

GrouchyKiwi · 27/05/2022 16:07

wallpoppy · 27/05/2022 14:26

I didn’t think that birds had sex until I was in my 20s. I thought that the females laid eggs and the males came by later and I guess just bird-wanked over them. When I was a kid my gran had hens and when I asked why no chicks was told that there would need to be a rooster nearby and as I had also at the same time seen a nature documentary where the male fish fish-wanked near the eggs the female fish left behind, I guess I just assumed it was a similar thing.

i learned I was wrong when I innocently asked a colleague why the one pigeon on the roof opposite kept trying to climb on the other pigeon’s back and my colleague was like “Erm… I think they might fancy each other if you get what I mean” and I said oh that’s cute they’re just playing around together and colleague said “poppy… they’re fucking”. And I was like 😳

My daughter saw a couple of seagulls getting it on the other day and came running to tell us that one seagull was giving the other a piggy back. Grin

WomanStanleyWoman2 · 27/05/2022 16:08

I was well into my thirties before I discovered the Reverend Mother in The Sound of Music is not singing ‘How do you keep away the ponder sand?’ in How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? Because Maria is a bit flighty and goes around in a dreamworld, I thought being taken over by the ‘ponder sand’ was like being away with the fairies, or having a fit of the vapours or some such.

I was very surprised to discover the line is actually ‘How do you keep a wave upon the sand?’ 🙈

CupidStunt22 · 27/05/2022 16:12

1000yellowdaisies · 27/05/2022 11:01

What?! The channel tunnel doesn't go through the water??

Of course not! How could it?

CupidStunt22 · 27/05/2022 16:14

SheWoreYellow · 27/05/2022 15:27

Yeah. British pronunciation of brusque is broosk, US is brusk.

Almond is aah mond in the UK but the US aal mond is becoming more widely used.

Show quote history

No, that's not correct.,

Original poster
ChristineCagney11 · 27/05/2022 16:15

Msloverlover · 27/05/2022 15:51

Wall plus are not called wall plugs
slugs are not homeless snails

(both were discovered in the last 2 years)

@Msloverlover
I have no idea what wall plus is 🤔
It's understandable about the whole snail/slug thing.
Of course as everyone knows slugs were kicked out of the mighty snail kingdom many many moons ago and forced to roam without a home.

OP posts:
ScurryfungeMaster · 27/05/2022 16:16

My sister in law told me that she thought it was a bit racist when people use the expression ''whole white world''. She didn't believe me when I told her it was actually ''whole wide world''.

bumblingbovine49 · 27/05/2022 16:16

ClaudiusTheGod · 27/05/2022 11:53

Your colleague is wrong.

Show quote history

I think both of those are used commonly, depending on accent . I say brusk but have heard broosk commonly used. I don't think either is wrong, or at least neither sounds wrong to me.

NippyWoowoo · 27/05/2022 16:17

'Wouldn't say boo to a goose'.

Read it in a book recently, always thought it was boo to a ghost 👻

Makes more sense

Original poster
ChristineCagney11 · 27/05/2022 16:18

haggisaggis · 27/05/2022 15:56

I was in my thirties before I realised that the road sign for loose chippings is not actually a big hammer!

@haggisaggis
Um what is it then ?
Asking for a friend 😎

OP posts:
IHateWasps · 27/05/2022 16:20

I need to see a pic of the loose chippings sign because the one I'm picturing, with a car on it, looks nothing like a hammer. Are there others?

RosyappleA · 27/05/2022 16:21

Haha. Had a foreign colleague pronouce siobhan literally as SIO-BAN

JustDanceAddict · 27/05/2022 16:23

StageRage · 27/05/2022 11:17

Until recently I thought the teams on University Challenge were actually on top of each other.

I thought that for years too!

JanetPluchinsky · 27/05/2022 16:24

ImplementingTheDennisSystem · 27/05/2022 15:38

My mum told me that your blood is blue, but turns red when exposed to oxygen. She really meant it too (please don't be mean, she's not formally educated).
I repeated this understanding to my A-level science teacher and she laughed in my face! My mum swore blind - how was I to know (pre-internet remember).

Is that not true then? I thought that’s why your veins are blue! 🤦🏻‍♀️ I was definitely taught that at school.

Aroundtheworldin80moves · 27/05/2022 16:25

I can see how the car on the loose chipping sign could be mistaking for a hammer...

images.app.goo.gl/1EWMNpHNEEBdwYuQA

Lurleene · 27/05/2022 16:25

I can't remember why it came up but I mentioned that Olivia Newton John was Australian. DS told me that was wrong as I'd previously told him she was from Greece 😃