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Original poster

What stupid things have you believed/said/assumed before finding out to your embarrassment you were wrong?

411 replies

CookieRookie · 27/08/2011 13:38

Could do with a laugh today

Here's mine...

1 - I thought a filet mignon was something presented on fire, you know with brandy or something...a flamin yon Blush

2 - I thought rollmops where called roll 'em ups because they're rolled up but I was kind of right with that one.

Not hilarious, though dh did laugh at me til he was nearly sick, but I'm hoping some of you have much better, more embarrassing ones.

OP posts:
mazzi2fly · 27/08/2011 23:01

Another one I never connected was Illinois with 'Illi-noy'

RoastedChestnuts · 27/08/2011 23:21

really did laugh out loud at that one keep haha :)

CitrusZest · 27/08/2011 23:22

Until reading this thread, I thought a liger was a joke from Napoleon Dynamite.

iceandsliceplease · 27/08/2011 23:28

My DS's DP was convinced that the phrase was 'all intensive purposes'. Not 'all intents and purposes'.

Purposes looks weird when you write it down...I'm paranoid now that I've spelt it wrong.

Which reminds me that back in the days pre internet when I had a long distance relationship with someone, it massively annoyed me that he wrote 'weird' as 'wierd'.

When I was 14, a friend told a group of us that she had had a dog when she was younger, but it had got ill, so her parents decided the dog would be better to go and live on a farm. The next day everyone was pissing themselves laughing about it, which I thought was really cruel - I'd be so upset in her position. They had to explain what 'going to live on a farm' meant. Blush

DS thought that the Paolo Nutini song was 'But vegetable, I've got my baby!', not 'But best of all'.

PerryCombover · 27/08/2011 23:34

my mum still says half caste except when she catches herself on and says coffee and cream

i wish i were dead then

StealthPolarBear · 27/08/2011 23:40

"Add message | Report | Message poster tallulah Sat 27-Aug-11 22:01:11
DD1 was 21 when DD2 was born. The first time she saw her she exclaimed "she has knees!". She thought they grew later, like teeth."

I think kneecaps do grow at about 18m - i have a 2yo and she has them!

How many of us had vaguely heard of "Donkey Houghtey"?

I also used to think jaywalking was somehow linked to prostitution. Still not sure exactly what it is - crossing the road? From a country that lets everyone carry a gun...

kennythekangaroo · 27/08/2011 23:51

I convinced my sister that pelican crossings made their loud beeping sounds so that blind drivers knew when people were crossing.

BuzNuz · 28/08/2011 00:07

Sorry if this is a repeat...have read some but not all the messages yet..
I thought until recently that the bad guy in Star Wars was Dark Raider! :o

Nihilisticbunny · 28/08/2011 00:14

My parents pissed themselves when for some unknown reason I mentioned the US state oo-hee-oh (ohio), I also thought organdie was a colour Hmm, no idea where I got that from. Dp thought that babies were like dogs and didn't open their eyes for a bit, he asked me when dd would open them, I replied most likely when she woke up, he was very ConfusedGrin.

mycatsaysach · 28/08/2011 00:15

i remember ds coming home from yr 1 and telling me about the new star wars film and the new baddie 'daft mole'

renlo · 28/08/2011 00:19

I only realised very recently, at the grand old age of 32 that mange touts are not pronounced manga-towt. And I thought the shop assistants in sainsburys were the thick ones for not knowing what I meant! Ditto, MediSed, got funny looks in Boots asking for med-iced Blush

I also made an arse of myself once, by remarking how uncanny it was that every judge had Justice for a first name in a room full of high brow professionals (of which I am supposed to be one).

The Yosemite one is new to me, have always thought it was Yo-Semite. Yo-se-mit-ey sounds weird in my head. Confused

BuzNuz · 28/08/2011 00:41

might as well add another one....a colleague pronounced the word "awry" as "awree" - she was corrected amid hysterical laughing!

BuzNuz · 28/08/2011 00:45

ok....you've really got me going now...a very close friend was discussing 'menstruaLATION' with a group of women! She must have mentioned it 10 times. I did not have the heart to correct her! Still cringe with embarrassment at the thought of it!

thisisyesterday · 28/08/2011 00:47

i have just remembered that dp's friend always used to call the kerb the kerv (like curve)

and dp used to say alumiLium instead of aluminium

CornishMade · 28/08/2011 06:53

Scampi is an actual creature - called Norway lobster or Dublin bay prawns or in French, Langoustine - all different names for the same critter apparently. I have no idea though, why we then call it Scampi once it's been crumbed and fried!

LRDTheFeministDragon · 28/08/2011 06:58

stealth - yeah, it's crossing the road at a non-designated crossing place - utterly mad! I'm glad I'm not the only one thought it was something much dodgier.

FruStefanLindman · 28/08/2011 07:01

Not me, but my best friend; the first time she ordered whitebait in a restaurant she asked the waiter if they could be filleted. We're still laughing about it some...erm...30 years later Grin

I knew what a blackguard was - and I knew the pronunciation was 'blaggard' - but still managed to refer to a blackguard as a 'black guard' - aged 23, much to the hilarity of an older colleague Blush

TheBride · 28/08/2011 07:05

I thought Arkansas was pronounced phonetically- I knew that there was also a state pronounced "Ar-kan-saw" but I never connected the two Blush

Tee2072 · 28/08/2011 07:12

See, now I just always thought scampi was the recipe name!

For the confused, Arkansas, Yosemite etc are Native American names. Hence the not usual pronunciation.

StealthPolarBear · 28/08/2011 07:55

What is "blackguard"
DH used to pronounce "caveat" as "cav-eet" - not a word we use in daily conversation so I only discovered this at the age of about 28/29. I corrected him and he was laughing at me and adamant he was right. Then I found one of those talking dictionary things on the web.

BIL used to thnk the word was "molticoloured" and did not see that it was made up of "multi" and "coloured".

Am I on my own with Donkey Houghtey then?

PacificDogwood · 28/08/2011 07:56

Yes, they are native American names, but if 'Kansas' is pronounced as it is spelled then why not Ar-kansas?? I feel aggrieved and 'tricked.

I have also learned about ligers and tigons and li-tigons and ti-ligers after googling the creature at the first mention of liger as I was convinced it was just made up

As a child I hated cucumber and my gran told me eating cucumber made you fast Hmm. I was staying on her farm for the summer holidays and amongst other things had been trying to catch flies with my bare hands - yes, I was easily amused. Had a piece of cucumber and whaddayakno caught a frigging fly!! I believed cucumber made you fast for many, many years...

Tee2072 · 28/08/2011 07:59

Because they are words from different native languages with different pronunciations. The spellings have just been 'Americanized'.

PacificDogwood · 28/08/2011 08:06

Ah, that makes sense, thanks Tee

whomovedmychocolate · 28/08/2011 08:11

I had to leave Weightwatchers because I was not able to take advice from a leader who kept extolling the virtues of Brock-O-lie Grin

FruStefanLindman · 28/08/2011 08:19

A blackguard is an old fashioned term for a scoundrel (and, afaik, does not have any racist connotations)

When I was young my mum used to pronounce 'Donkey Houghtey' as 'Donkey Shot'. I hope I learnt the correct pronunciation before I actually said it publicly, Stealth