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.

Recently found out that dry cleaning is called as such only because it doesn’t use water. It uses a solvent instead which is liquid.
I could never work out how clothes got cleaned without getting wet.

It took me a long time to understand (until my mid teens) that there was a whole process leading up to getting married: I thought it "just happened" when people met, like in fairy tales. In my childhood, I didn't see anybody I knew go through the process of "falling in love": all my parents' friends were married already, or had no partner at all, and I didn't have any cousins or similar who I might have seen go through it. The whole "dating/boyfriend/girlfriend" thing, or to use a more old-fashioned word, "courting", was a complete mystery to me, and I thought books always made a really big deal of people falling in love.

Not dumb as I was a kid, but the first time I heard of oral sex I thought it was talking about it!
Not that dumb, believe me. I once had a document for an offence of indecent assault submitted to me by a CID officer, in other words, A DETECTIVE (I'm ex police) where he stated that 'aural sex' had been committed.
I rang him to clarify, trying to be diplomatic and give him the benefit of the doubt. Nope. He was insistent that what he'd written was correct.
This was a man in his early forties.
I had no option but to submit the offence as stated, but l added a disclaimer saying that l had spoken to the officer to confirm what he'd written was correct, and he assured me it was, and the call was recorded and dated.
I never found out if it was followed up by anyone. My office staff couldn't believe it, though.

I have a lovely friend who signs off on texts with LOL - I know she thinks it means Lots of love . It is only because I had teenage DC I realised it wasn't - & that fine but sometimes doesn't fit with the text

TBF LOL did mean lots of love when I was a teenager.

I understood @BMW6 question. In the West End of London, the smaller cannon have wooden stoppers to keep the rain out. The sight of the much larger cannon, heavy enough to be stable and with a long hollow barrel made it seem likely as a cheap base for a tube containing gas pipes to a lantern on the top.
William Murdoch, who pioneered practical gas lighting in Britain around 1793, coincidentally demonstrated his gaslight with gas passed through a gun barrel, so it doesn't seem too much of a stretch.
Contributions from any industrial historians welcome.

An electric car is not automatic because it doesn't have a gearbox.

The term "automatic" refers to an automatic gearbox as opposed to "manual" or "stick shift" referring to a manual gearbox.

Again, an EV doesn't have a gearbox and doesn't feel like any kind of internal combustion engined vehicle. There's no sudden drop in engine note as the gear shifts. Driving an EV feels weird because of the regenerative braking that kicks in as soon as you take your foot off the sparks pedal. Automatics don't have regenerative braking to produce this effect. The two drivetrains are completely different technologies.

That was the noise it made, not something it did. That would not have been appropriate years ago.

Have you never heard piglets?

I remember my mum asking me what oral sex was ? I remember just thinking tell me this is not happening. I was in my twenties her in her forties.
I remember my mam reading a letter about oral sex on a problem page in a magazine, and remarking "God, they must be fond of a treat...." which basically translated as 'No way, not even if Hell freezes over!'
I was sitting there with my boyfriend and he looked at me, went bright red, and burst out laughing. Then grabbed his cigs and lighter and scuttled outside 'for a smoke'.
It was a very long smoke. And he didn't look at me when he came back in.
My mam would've been mid-late forties at the time. I was mid-late teens.

Years before I realised that 'misled' as in 'Don't be misled.' was not pronounced mizzled.

@Terfosaurus To be fair to my friend she is early 70s so from what you have said she will think that it what it means

Ohhhhhh 🐷🥓

I had no idea

Before t'internet and the mums and all the other net things since created....I did used to write letters from Oz describing my MIL; and that was exactly how I referred to her. Obvs I'm not the only one as it's been easily taken on since then (late '80s).

Not had an MIL since, learned my lesson - happy to give advice on that if needed.

My worst one is that I thought Kazakhstan was a made up place where Borat lived😯I was 26 when that film came out!!

But do they still do that thing where they suddenly stop if you take them out of drive and into neutral? That's what gave me whiplash from a petrol automatic.

I actually believed (years ago, admittedly) that Center Parcs was under some kind of huge perspex dome, much like the Eden Project.
Not quite as bad as a friend who thought, when Sky TV started, that the studio was literally somewhere 'in the sky' like some kind of space station or similar.
I've no idea how they thought that would work.

Dh got a pin reminder and was holding up the tiny bit of plastic you get a new PIN number on to the window and squinting at it - complaining he couldn't read the number. I had to show him that putting it on a piece of paper made the numbers instantly visible!
He has a PhD, but apparently no common sense 😀

No it's period after opening not from when you buy it

I used to read a lot as a child so I had seen loads of words written down that I’d never heard spoken. One of these such words was, epitome.
Always remember the absolute deathly silence and laughter at High School years later when I pronounced it epi-tome (to rhyme with bone).

I think Trump believed that too. At least one of his latest ideas in running for presidency (again) is enclosing the USA in a dome, which will keep them all safe. This time the Mexicans aren't paying for it; he's just going to reduce all the foreign aid so he can pay for it. I'm not sure he's thought about how planes are going to get through it yet.

But do they still do that thing where they suddenly stop if you take them out of drive and into neutral? That's what gave me whiplash from a petrol automatic.

No, because you dont do that. Just leave the stick alone unless you want to reverse or park. (I can't remember if they're all the same but on my hybrid you don't use neutral at all - not sure but it may only exist for if the car needs towing?)
Yes, you have to adjust to doing less - nothing with the left foot, hardly anything with your hands except steer and indicate. Even less now the 'handbrake' is automatic. This is progress!

I learned this by accident about a week ago!

Before I learned joined-up writing I was puzzled why the shoe shop was written Clanks

It didn't occur to me to attempt that particular manoeuver in the BMW i3 I'd hired.