What do you remember from your childhood that you now realise you really misunderstood?

[Carryonrunning]

Was just chatting to a friend about this:

1. Hearing all the boys in class talking about how a girl’s tampon fell out in the classroom. Lived in fear of this for many years before I realised they meant it fell out of her bag, not her body!

2. Opening the door of a sauna with my cousin (which was right in the middle of the spa area, so not private) on holiday in a nice hotel and my uncle inside shouting at us to close the door. I cried for weeks thinking I’d inadvertently seen him naked (although I didn’t actually see anything). Couldn’t look at him for years without feeling sick before I was old enough to realise we were just letting the heat out and annoying the other people in there! No one was naked in mixed sauna in the very public pool area of a nice spa hotel full of people!

Bills was an old name for posters. So "Bill posters/stickers will be prosecuted" meant you could be prosecuted for sticking up illegal posters. My husband and I used to joke that poor old Bill Stickers was being picked on!

That people on the TV could see you. On Swap Shop, Noel Edmonds said something like, 'Joe, from Birmingham, I can see you in your pyjamas'. I didn't understand it was just a mention to someone who'd written in. I worked it out fairly quickly, but for a brief period of time I always sat up straight just in case Noel Edmonds would tell me off for slouching...

Have none of the people who think the 'Tory Party' is short for the 'Conservatory Party' never voted? It's written on the ballot paper as Conservative. And on billboards. And there are party political broadcasts on behalf of the Conservative Party, on the telly, and news items about the Conservative Party Conference. I get misreading it, maybe, but it gets said out loud too

It's not really "short for" as the words are unrelated etymologically, but Tory is a nickname for Conservative.

Bowbligo

Genuinely laughed and woke the dog

Obviously they just stopped buying take out coffee and eating avocado on toast.....

A little macabre, at age 6 I asked what a coffin was and was told it was a box. 6 year old me thought boxes were cube shaped and envisaged people being rolled up to fit in them....a few months later I made friends with a boy in my class whose dad was an undertaker and the first time I went round his house for tea, we walked from school to his dad's shop and I saw coffins, which relieved my mind a lot. My new friend's older brothers then terrified me with stories of ghosts over tea.

A lot of adults still get confused by this, even more so now....

What does this mean?

When I was 5 I went for tea at my new friend’s house. Her mum dished up much bigger portions than my mum ever did, and I just couldn’t finish all the fish fingers.

Looking at the left over fish fingers on my plate, her mum said to me ‘there are children starving in Africa you know’. So I thought, ‘that’s quite good that I left some for them, then’. And couldn’t understand why she kept saying it more and more crossly. I mean I could hardly un-eat the ones I’d already had, could I?!

Daft saying anyway 😂

That 'L, M, N, O, P' were letters of the alphabet, not some weird noise in the middle of a song 'ellemenopee'

That the little pig wasn't actually going shopping at the market

My Dad told me it was God moving the coffins around 😱

I have only just realised this after reading your post!

Same here 🤦🏼‍♀️

I remember being in the car once and one of my older sisters said "ha, look, someone's put an I in the middle of the To Let sign"

I wasn't quick enough to see for myself, and spent quite some time wondering why anyone would draw an eye on the sign and why sis thought it was funny

I'm another one who read misled as mizle-d, but I had an extra layer: I knew what it meant, and I knew what mis-led meant, and I just didn't connect the two.

Hyperbole to rhyme with superbowl, obviously. aw-ree as well.

I read a Jean Plaidy novel which talked about Lucy Walter dying from something that often affected those that had lived her way of life. I assumed she was exhausted from all the travelling.

You did understand the concept, it was just that you maybe didn't know ALL the possibilities, and had not heard the words spoken aloud.

I can recall being in chapel and the vicar saying’ at we dwell in the house of the Lord forever’
I thought we’d have to stay forever! And I just wanted to go home! So I sat there quietly crying. Stopped once outside and could go home!

I read a lot as a child and it was a long time before I realised they didn’t serve horse’s doofers at posh dinner parties. (hors d’oeuvres)

Wow... I hope he didn't fix it for your friend. Pieces of works, those guys!

The BBC message boards (back in day) automodded any post that spelled Fuchsia correctly for years.

I ran home and excitedly informed my family that I was in the "G-nomees" brownies group, instead of Gnomes, I was miffed when they all laughed.

Mum and dad went shopping to a ‘freezer centre’ where ‘the whole place is a freezer’
I thought they would have to climb up a massive ladder and lift the lid up on top of the building to get in, like a two storey chest freezer 😮

When I was five/six I had to stay overnight in hospital for a morning procedure (would be purely day case now). When they announced it was suppertime, I ran back to my bed and pulled the bed table towards me - because that is how pictures always showed people in hospital eating supper. I remember feeling embarrassed when they told me it would be served at the table instead.

Man, I wish that was how those places worked. You could have bobsleigh runs to get down to the bottom and chairlifts to get back up.

This just unlocked a 30 year old memory!

Me and my friend when we were about 10 decided to try smoking - so we got a piece of A4, rolled it up, lit one end and inhaled through the other. To be honest we couldn't see the appeal!