When the penny drops about dumb things that you should have known!

[malificent7]

For ages I thought there was a poster called Tia. I always used to think it was a bit weird that they would sign their name....not very anonymous. Now I realise it means thanks in advance.
I am 45.

I always had visions of the piggy with his shopping basket!

Paddy wagon. I only clicked when reading another thread today I'm ashamed to say

So have I. I'm 42!

I used to think my sister was very clever to put the singles (45rpm) on the record player in the same order each time. I could predict which would come on next. Then after quite a while, I discovered the LPs!

@IIwishiwasasilentnight I realise that now! 😁

I only realised very recently that BST is 7 months, not 6. In my head the two different times were 6 months each until I did some counting on my fingers the other day.

@Tilllly The reason petrol cars need a gearbox is that a petrol engine only has a limited range of speeds, and once a car is moving fast, it needs less power (i.e. a higher gear) to keep it moving. The gearbox converts the slow engine speed to a higher speed, but with less power. An "automatic" petrol car does have a gearbox, with actual gears, but you don't operate it directly: the automatic part does that for you.

In an electric car, the motors drive the car more "directly". There probably is some sort of regulation similar to a gearbox, but I expect it's much more electronic, rather than mechanical.

Omg. 34 and laughing to myself because it has just dawned on me.

Oh…. 😦

A phrase I was confused about was: "She was his coke and spiriter".

Co-conspirator.

That we are all born with all the teeth we will ever have. Google 'x-ray of baby skull' and don't thank me for it 😬

Great thread - thank you OP!

I'm learning lots. It made me think of that quote by Donald Rumsfeld (anyone remember him? I think he was US Defence Sec under Dubya??) He got a lot of stick for this - especially 'unknown unknowns' - but that's what we're talking about here - things you don't even know you don't know, so you only find out by accident - you can hardly Google them!

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know."

I was one of those who didn’t know those fluffy things were actually dandelions.

Omg nooooo I thought it went shopping and imagined it skipping to market with a little wicker basket!! I am 47 and never realised this till now!

You can’t 😭 but they’re sweet and sour and astringent in equal measures - not to everyone’s taste, but I love it. You can buy the concentrated juice from Brazilian shops, or Tesco if you’re lucky enough to have a Brazilian section in your world foods aisle. Look for ‘caju’.

I was 29 before I realised our (ancient and arthritic) family dog, who disappeared one day when I was 8, didn't go into police dog training academy to work as a four legged crime fighting buddy. I was so proud of him.

That the lyric in London Calling by The Clash is 'London is drowning and I live by the river', not 'London is burning' as I'd misheard for years.

And that the woman in Safety Dance shouts 'danser' as in the French for 'to dance' and not anything else I'd imagined.

Whaaaat?? No. Way. (Penny drops) I’m dumbfounded. Am also 46 years old….

Fortnight.

More than 70 years on the planet.

Found out today.

@Hereifyouneed not actually true but certainly most adult teeth are present but don't have roots , the tooth germs of adult central incisors and first molars start calcifying at birth so if a baby is very ill in first few months of life it can show up later as enamel defects on these teeth when they erupt.

I spent two years in NYC and thought the Flatiron building was pronounced in French. Years later I learned the correct pronunciation 😆

Oh my God.

43 years old and you’ve just opened my eyes to this horror!

Newel post, on the stairs, I thought was a Mule post, and I assumed it was that, because you needed somewhere to tie up your horse in older times.

In my defence, I watched loads of old American Western cowboy films at the time, and this was the most logical thing I could think of.

it’s not ‘good tidings we bring, to you and your king’
which is what I’ve been singing since forever

But you could have googled it in less time that making the post…

edit: should have quoted the “I can’t work out what hi-fi stands for post”