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 used to walk past the stretcher fences on Tabard Street every morning on the way to work...

Cannons were also used to make bollards - there's a few around Bankside.

@PumpkinsAndCoconuts , you don’t mean the Black Death is a myth, do you?

For anyone who doesn't know it, he was some sort of analyst and therapist and decided to make up a new word combining the two - analrapist. Thinking about that now has made me laugh. Its a great TV series, I'd really recommend.

@Auntieobem WHAT! We pass that sign regularly on our journey to and from the North East of Scotland. Every time I see it I say to my husband ‘oh I would love to see the Gibbons’ 😂. My DH is now denying that he thought there were actual Gibbons there. This is despite the fact that he often starts singing The Funky Gibbon song when we pass it (one for the oldies there). There was I feeling very smug on reading this thread at my excellent general knowledge.

@mjf981 I’m a CBT therapist and I can confirm you’re not the only one! I’ve been questioned about what the letters stand for more than once, usually with a snigger. Thankfully the misunderstanding has never got as far as someone being very disappointed in their first appointment with me. The other CBT is the motorbike test - this is an easier misunderstanding to manage.

Elton John's Nikita - I thought it was "counting ten tin soldiers any road" til I realised it was "in a row". Definitely sounds like any road and Elton is a bit blokey

When I was a child, my parents and I always had a little bet on the Grand National - no interest in horse racing other than that.
Up until a few years ago, I thought betting on a horse "each way" meant that the horses ran the race, then turned round and ran the race in reverse, back to the start........... 🙈

Last week I realised, aged 38 (and a half), that the Elgin marbles are not in fact round marbles. But sculptures made from marble.

I have participated in discussions about the legality of ownership + held forth at some length about the rights of countries of artistic origin.

I can’t even bring myself to admit this to my husband yet. I need to sit with it for a while 😆🤯🤦🏼‍♀️

oh no, not at all!

but “ring a ring o’roses” most probably isn’t about the bubonic plague. That association is most likely a bit of a myth.

I didn't know this either, about Arctus. However, I looked it up and it's nothing to do with Polar bears, it's named after the constellation 'Great Bear' or 'Little Bear', at least so Wikipedia tells me. And 'Antarctic' is not so much 'no bears' as 'opposite to the arctic'.

You know those punnets of fruit sold in supermarkets which are individually wrapped in plastic netting?

To open one, my mum would always cut the netting with a pair of scissors, and for more than 15 years I did the same. Then, when I was about 35, my colleague and I were preparing refreshments for a meeting and I was frantically looking for a pair of scissors. My colleague looked surprised and said, “just tear it open with your hands”. So I did. It was easy. 🙈

😆

My DB thought that early in the 20th century, people walked funny, because that's how it looks on old newsreels.

For years I thought that if you were born male you were male and if you were born female you were female 🤨

A long ago teen BF was asked this when being measured for a suit, for a family wedding.

He hadn’t a clue what the tailor meant, until he changed it in a hissy whisper to, ‘Which side do your balls hang?’

Upon reading this thread and realising how thick so many posters are, I’ve just realised how pointless it would be to ever ask for advice or opinions on mn.

Unless you're of a certain age, then you're not dumb.

In the 1980's, Roland is/was the brand name of keyboards and was emblazoned across them. I had assumed the name was that of the person playing the keyboards. Some really old friends still occasionally refer to me as 'Roland' 😊

Erm why??

Haha my DP said that once. Reading the description and said 'What a min-i-siries?' The worst bit was I had to look at it myself for longer than I should have to be able to answer him! (They'd written it all as one word which didn't help).

I'm glad I showed my 11 year old how to do that this morning, I've saved them from a lifetime of poking tubes with scissors 🤣

Years ago when I was a student, I was traveling through France on a train with a friend. She fell asleep and awoke as the train made an intermediate stop. My friend looked out of the window at the signage and said, "We must be in Sortie."

I have to really concentrate not to pronounce a bunch of flowers as a "bowquet" - it annoys me intensely that it should be "bookay" when Banquet isn't "bonket"

I showed my mum how to do this. She had been a pediatric nurse for 20 years

Okaaaayy… am I the only one who has spent years thinking it was “He drives and I walk”? It makes sense in the context of the song, I’m sure!

Ha! That's a good one!

To be fair I'd have thought that more a Halloween thing