Ridiculous things you've only recently realised you've been wrong about your entire life

[Seasidedolly]

I genuinely thought if you pulled the reverse cord on ceiling fans, it would circulate warm air.

My friend thought the yellow average speed cameras on motorways were there to look for missing children.

I had another recent revelation but I can't remember it now

TesticleI had the exact same tunnel conversation with my then 3 year old DD. She wanted to know how the built the tunnel under the mersey with all the water in the way. She was hugely disappointed that it wasn't a big glass type one like you get in sealife centres.

Gibraltar is sometimes referred to as 'the rock', so maybe that's why people think it's an island. It does make it sound like it isn't attached to anything.

At some point the straight of Gibraltar was closed and l linked Europe to Africa. Not an island.

ijustwannadance it's good to know I'm on the same wavelength as a three year old!

Yellow dandelions turn into dandelion clocks. I never realised this until last year and always thought they were completely different weeds.

Until very recently I didn't know people actually lived in Iceland. Also when I was much younger and growing up in South London, I used to think I could see Paris, but it was actually just crystal palace

Moles. I spent 30 years thinking they were massive creatures, like badgers or something. It was only recently when my mother mentioned her cat bringing one home that I found out the truth. The thing is, whenever you see a picture of a mole, it's alone, there's not really anything to compare its size to.

When I was 12 I had a massive argument with my best friend about the existence of pubic lice. For some reason I was convinced that they couldn't possibly exist and that she was lying?

Lozza - I have had friends see "the Eiffel Tower" from our flat in Brockley

Psst - Lweji - it's Strait!

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Gibraltar_crossing

There's a very interesting bit in there about proposals to build a tunnel under the Strait (in the light of recent events that won't be happening any time soon - if ever, given the depth & geology. But ties in nicely with Eurotunnel/Blackwall tunnel posts )

Tenter hooks are still in use in traditional smokehouses, used to hang up the kippers, for instance at Craster.

It took me until I was 30 to realise that you can make stir fry without buying a bag of stir fry veg.

I make most things from scratch and don't buy many pre-made convenience foods, but for some reason had a massive blind spot when it came to stir fry and thought that unless you bought one of those bags with tough chopped cabbage and musty beansprouts, it wasn't a stir fry.

My stir fries are now delicious.

FurbysMakeSexNoises "I didn't realise for years that rice puddings were actually factually made of rice."

Huh? That makes no sense to me. Isn't the clue in the name and what else would they be made of?

StillMedusa "She also (aged 17!) was surprised how quickly our baggage arrived when we got back to Heathrown from Florida. After some questioning it transpired that she didn't realise that they came on the plane... but thought they went on a long conveyor belt UNDER the sea !!!! Her logic was that they disappeared and reappeared on that conveyor belt"

REALLY? At 17 she actually thought that? Fucking hell!

Grunt there was a advert a while ago where they asked people in the street what Rice Krispies were made from. Most people didn't know.

"The Arkansas and Arkansaw one is a revaluation to me"

(Shh! I'm still not sure if people are saying it's the same place or a different one! Perhaps should have just googled rather than writing this )

"I didn't realise for years that rice puddings were actually factually made of rice."

My friend's DS asked her what chicken was made from, and was surprised to learn that chicken was - well - chicken!

In his defence, he was about 6 at the time.

It also took me until well into my 20s to pair up the pronunciation and spelling of the words segue and superfluous.

I knew what they both meant spoken aloud, I knew what they both meant written down, but I didn't realise the spoken and written versions were the same thing until much much later.

I thought there was a word 'say-je' as well as a word 'segway'.

I also thought there was a word 'super-flooze' as well as a word 'soo-per-floo-us'.

Mackrel, this has happened to me numerous times (with different words). I guess I kind of thought the two versions were synonyms.

Most embarrassingly, when I was picked (as the g&t one) to read a poem aloud in History lesson in Year 9:
'Drunk with fat-ee-guoo' (fatigue)

Oh, and I thought bidet was spelled b-day until we passed an advert once and I said to my friend, 'What's a bee-dette?' I was studying French A Level at the time AND we had a bidet at home.

I thought the Elgin Marbles were just big glass balls, and wondered why everyone was so bothered about them. Then I saw a programme about them.....i was in my 20s

In fairness I think most people think the Elgin marbles are big glass balls. If you want a laugh, go to the British Museum, stand by the doorway into the gallery that has got the Elgin Marbles in. Fully half of people walk in, look around at all the wonderful statues, mutter 'this isn't right, I thought this was where the Elgin Marbles were' and walk out again.

After the earlier discussions about the Moon, I thought I'd be clever and ask if you know the difference between the far side of the Moon and the dark side of the Moon. It turns out that I was labouring under a misconception: what I've learnt is that the dark side of the Moon doesn't refer to the side which is not illuminated by Sun, it means "dark" in the sense of unknown, which corresponds to the far side of the Moon (unseen by mankind until 1959).

We never see the far ('dark') side of the Moon from Earth, but over the course of a monthly cycle, the part that is dark in the sense of not illuminated changes, giving us the phases of the Moon.

Psst Lweji - it's Strait!

This is the same Lweji that pulled me for my spelling of Gibraltor!

I remember newsreaders in the 1970s reporting on guerrilla warfare; I was terrified and honestly believed that gorillas were rebelling in the jungles, fighting humankind.
I think the 'truth' only slowly surfaced when I was 11...
In my defence, Planet of The Apes was big on TV at the time. And I was a highly imaginative child :/

As a child I saw the headline of a newspaper screaming 'CHAOS ON THE TUBE' with devastating photos of crowds of people being trampled, falling down escalators etc.
I'd never seen the word 'chaos' before and for some reason read it as 'chihuahuas' (the little dogs)
I puzzled for years over how these tiny animals could cause such devastation.
Bad dogs...???