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

I thought 'virginity' was to do with having an intact hymen.
How can you still have an intact hymen if you have given birth?
Or, is it to do with having intercourse?
So, if you have IVF then a C-Sec, did you have a 'virgin birth'
(no offence intended to anyone who has strong religious feelings about this, btw)

Oh, when I first joined mumsnet I thought the emoji was an asshole. Aussie here.

That the moon doesn't shine, just reflects the sun. I was gutted.

I was told by a colleague that hens eggs drop directly out of their uterus from a different hole - confused now
This thread has me LOL loads.

I learned an angler fish is only a couple inches long (that fish with the glowy thing in finding nemo). I thought they were the size of a coffee mug at smallest.

Wait ... I thought the males were tiny, and the females were at least coffee mug size. Aren't there different species, too?

Now I need to google this.

Vestal Virgin a weasle is weasily recognized though a stoat is stoatally different.

Garlick
Bless him he gets confused a lot. Haha. The funniest thing he has ever said (it was about 3 years ago) we were sitting on a beach and a seagull was on a groin and the tide was coming in. He pipes up with. ''That birds going to get stuck on there soon'' I just looked at him like and then he laughs and goes ''oh wait it can swim''. I go ''it can bloody fly'' hahahhahaha. Funniest person I know!

Ahh, found the tiny anglerfish. They look rather threatening if you don't know how tiny they are.

Link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudiantennarius_subteres

"Recently realised its hang gliding not hand gliding"

Really?!

Vestal - Nothing radioactive about cauliflower. It's a member of the same species as cabbage (brassica) but was referred to as a food more than 8,000 years ago. Broccoli was first cultivated as food about 2,000 years ago. It is also a brassica.

I have learnt a lot tonight

Hang Gliding
Gibraltar is not an island
Co. Durham is not in Ireland

I also previously thought Arkansas and Arkansaw were different places. I blame Kansas for that though

Still not sure on this Virgin birth/ immaculate conception business. Surely Mary was the Virgin! The Virgin Mary...

Oh and arctic lorries. Definitely

I thought angler fish were huge! To be exact, I thought the female was huge and the male tiny. I'd even swear I've seen one in a museum

Dying at a cunt being a baby horse
Mind = blown about the immaculate conception / virgin birth - and I went to a private catholic school and was taught by nuns

I was 32 until I realized not all lions had manes :/ Seemingly only the male ones do...

I had a similar revelation about gravy two years previously, I thought there was only one kind.

In mid 2003, I was perusing the paper when I happened upon a double page spread picture of a street scene after a particularly strong bombing raid by the UK and our allies. Jokingly, I said to then DP, "there goes the timeshare in Baghdad then". He replied something along the lines of 'oh, well, i'll never get to see that then?" in a jovial yet sarcastic manner, giving the impression he was joking along with it.

A few months later, similar situation, similar picture elicited me to say 'it's been totally destroyed, now, that little timeshare flat's gone'. About 30 seconds passed and he burst into tears, wailing that I'd lost my money in it and i'd never see the investment back. He'd taken my sarky comments for real for three months, apparently :/

I wasn't spoken to for two days afterwards, and I guess I kinda deserved that. :/

Alyselisabeth - Blimey!!!

I thought Port Vale was in Wales.

Isn't where Jesus was conceived the annunciation?

Not my whole life, but just since MN, I thought the "I'm on" thread link at the top was a special chat board for ladies with their TOTM, only twigged a couple of week's ago. No idea why I thought that!

If it makes you feel any better I completely ignored the "Adult Fiction" section on MN for weeks. I thought it was Adult ie porn fiction

He never asked you about it, crazycat? Like, how long you'd had it or what was Baghdad like?

Never. He just assumed I did, he was really ignorant about money in general (which is why we broke up in the end). We'd only been going out a matter of months at this point so he'd never known me go on vacation, but even so, who would go to Baghdad on vacation if you're not originally from there? :/

OldGrey - Virgin birth is the term that caught on, but really what the Bible describes is a virgin conception, ie without having sex with a man, Mary conceived a child.

In the following nine months, it would seem she got married to Joseph, as they travelled to Bethlehem together, so I think it's quite compatible with Christian faith to believe she might not have been a virgin by the time Jesus was born (unless I've overlooked a Bible verse that asserts the opposite).

No! DadDadDad Catholics (and some other) are quite clear on the thought that Mary remained a virgin. She wa called the Ever Virgin.

That peas don't contain vitamin p

Thanks mum. I believed that for 30 years. Dh nearly died laughing when he found out.

Chippy I was convinced that Pontefract was also in Wales.

Until recently I had no idea what cracking flags meant in the context of a hot day. I thought it was something where flags (I.e. those up poles) reacted with heat and somehow shredded.

My friend thinks that one catches trains from St Pancreas. She's 44 and I don't have the heart to tell her.