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!

But that is how you pronounce ceramic! How do you think it's pronounced?

It's Guerrilla soldiers/warfare not 'Gorilla'.

I was confused with Planet of the Apes and the six o'clock news! 😬

I thought they trained Gorillas to use machine guns! 😂

I truly thought 'Getting a divorce' meant that the couple had to do the wedding ceremony in reverse -- instead of being in white, the bride dressed all in black, and the couple had to go to the church and take back all their vows. All the guests cried like at a funeral.
This was when there was still a lot of shame attached to divorce (early 70s). I think my mum's hushed explanation of divorce must've confused me!

IMO the pp meant Sir-ay-mick.

That’s how I read it, anyway.

I used to think that when you saw a "To let" sign on a building, it was a polite way of saying there's a public toilet in there.

In the UK it's the other way round! Look right first.

Quite an image, it sounds really cathartic.

Something a therapist would make you do.

I was told this! To me it made sense: if you banged cushions together, the made a tiny little sound, and clouds were enormous so the sound would be proportionally much louder!

Serra-mic? SER-a-mic?

I used to listen to the theme tune of the Wombles and thought when they sang “the Wombles of Wimbledon,
common are we”

that they considered themselves a bit low class.

Quite possibly!

I think in truth he viewed her as ‘having been round the block a bit’, he had probably been there too as had his mates.

Very of it’s 1970’s time and views.

My uncle was in a car accident and my mum said he twisted his ankle. I thought that meant his foot had turned backwards 🙈.

DS used to think the people used the sewers as a way of getting around like the teenage mutant ninja turtles until he mused one day that there were loads of sewer lids but he never saw anyone coming out of them. When I explained that’s not the case, he said “but it’s the fastest way to get around the city!” (We don’t live in a city 😂).

Me too! 🤦‍♀️

I always thought that male sweet shop/newspaper staff must all be a very polite lot because over the door it always said 'News Gents'. Of course, it was really 'newsagents' but I went with my version for years when I was a kid.

In my daythunder was God moving the furniture around.
Anyone else remember this?

I thought mummy genuinely was kissing Santa Claus in the song. I always thought it was a bit mean on the dad and wondered why someone would write a happy song about it. I was literally an adult when I realised the truth 🙈

Every time I heard "held in custody" on TV, I thought it was "custardy". I imagined each criminal sitting in a huge vat of yellow custard! 😂

Yes, but I didn't realise until I was 36, and I said it to my DS and my partner started laughing and explained that in fact it was not clouds banging together

Oh my intelligent 4A star Alevel son, as he started uni, thought that his overdraught was ‘money the bank has given me’.🤯

He was shocked to find that he would have to pay it back if he spent it….😵‍💫

That my parents friend who was referred to as a "confirmed bachelor" was actually gay.
I just thought he hadn't met anyone yet and I was in with a chance of being a bridesmaid!

I have another.....

Years ago my grandpa was cutting the grass and he went over a frog and near enough cut it clean in half, my dad sat me on his knee, said not to worry, the frogs friends will come and get him and make him better, took me into the kitchen and when we went back frog was gone........

Fast forward 30 years and a frog had drowned in a bucket in my back garden, told DS that if we pour the water and frog onto the grass, its friends would come and get it, and proceeded to pour the water and dead frog onto the grass. It was as I was doing this that the penny dropped.

This is so funny but actually an amazing concept

Way back when Toblerones were something a bit exotic, my uncle gave my mum one and said "That is for doing the curtains." 4 year old me didn't realise that it was a present to thank my mum for making him some curtains, and started "cleaning the curtains" with it. My mum has never let me forget this.

Me too!!!

Same!! And in fact even after I knew the truth about Santa it took me a while to twig about the song…