Things you used to think and now can't quite believe you did

[treaclesoda]

I saw a seagull flying and it suddenly occurred to me that when I was little, I thought there were two different types of seagulls. Ones with legs, and ones without. Naturally the ones with legs had no choice but to fly all the time

I was a pretty bright child, I can't imagine why I thought that.

Please tell me someone else out there thought the same?

Common wombles - yes.

Armed gorillas - yes.

I didn't think jeans caused cancer, but did have a similar sort of worry about catching AIDS from dirty needles: if you bought some how did you know they were clean. And what about pins? Nobody ever mentioned the risk from those, but surely they're the same sort of pointy metal thing. I accidentally stabbed myself with a safety pin and worried about it for ages. In my defence it was 1982 so I was only slightly less informed than most people at the time, and I was 8.

When I was little my mother said never to tickle anyone or let anyone tickle you. Why? Because you'll get worms.

It was only when I started working in vets that I saw the light

My daughter thinks that every time a song is played on the radio the artist is actually in the radio station singing in to a microphone. She knows about CD's, records and Ipods but just won't have it that the people aren't actually singing live when on the radio. In her defence she is 8 and as daft as a brush!

Signs that say trespassers will be prosecuted. I thought prosecuted meant being put in the electric chair and I worried about trespassing when out on family walks.

I remember seeing signs that said Bill Stickers is innocent!

I didn't know the pony thing until I read this thread! I thought they were just baby horses!

*When I was little my mother said never to tickle anyone or let anyone tickle you. Why? Because you'll get worms.

It was only when I started working in vets that I saw the light*

You'll have to explain this one to me please?

I've only just got the wombles thing reading this thread

Still not entirely sure I believe you all though....

I used to think limes were unripe lemons.

DH amusingly thought that his school staff room was where they kept a stash of "staffs" as in something that Robin Hood and Little John might use when battling baddies on a log over a stream

I used to think pineapples grew on pineapple trees.

I am 30 and have only just realised (last week) that Sinn Fein is an organisation and not the name of a person.

I also believed that you could get pregnant by kissing boys until I was about 13 and had proper sex education think my dad deserves a pat on the back for that one

There's a treacle well in Alice in Wonderland, I never knew what to believe in that book....

My BIL didn't know what tummy buttons were for until he watched his own daughter being born.

I don't get the worms one

I used to get worried about drinking and driving because my dad would drink lemonade at the pub and then drive home

When we were going to norfolk from London when I was little, my mum and dad would pretend it was a foreign country and tune into Dutch radio stations so we were fooled.

I was always amazed how well the locals spoke English...

^When we were going to norfolk from London when I was little, my mum and dad would pretend it was a foreign country and tune into Dutch radio stations so we were fooled.

I was always amazed how well the locals spoke English...^

Much like Nummer I used to think petrol stations were built over naturally occurring fields of petroleum. Even after I learned about how crude oil was refined into petroleum etc.

I think I was about fourteen when it finally clicked

Oh, I have a doozy of one.

When I was little, in the US, I remember watching Tom and Jerry and other older cartoons, and for some reason a common plot would be the characters set in some historical England or France, and someone would end up beheaded (off-screen).

At 4 or 5, I had no concept of history, obviously. I thought this was present day. These cartoons, coupled with Alice in Wonderland and other media, made be absolutely certain I would never go to England or France, because if I did I ran the risk of accidentally offending the queen, say by using the wrong cutlery at dinner or curtsying badly, and she would order my head chopped off. I thought this was a normal, usual thing that happened. I would have nightmares about it.

I was absolutely terrified of England and couldn't understand why people would visit or live there, under the thumb of a mad queen who beheaded little girls if they didn't have perfect manners, and why everyone accepted this.

I thought until recently that you only had ribs on your front.
(ribcage should have given the game away). I cannot understand how I assumed such a thing.

yes letter I can relate to that. Grease and Happy Days were big when I was 10. I just assumed they were current American teenagers. I didn't get that it was set in the 50s.

If I ate lots of grapes I would get drunk, they would turn into wine in my tummy. I really felt 'drunk' once after eating as many as I could.

Dear oh dear, of course treacle comes from mines, the proper stuff, not this modern sugary muck britishfoodhistory.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/the-treacle-mines-of-england/

I used to sing 'one two three four five once I caught a fishalive'
I never knew what a fishalive was until years later.. They meant a fish that's alive!

Also I always thought pork chops and lamb chops were the cheeks of the animal as they were called 'chops'. My dh thought that was so funny!