Things you really should have known sooner...

[TheDodgyEnd]

I’ve just learned that Casablanca is not in South America at all and is, in fact in Morocco! Who knew 🙄🤦🏼‍♀️
Anyone else got any tidbits they learned far too late in life?

Rainallday Oh yes you do if you’re from Somerset or Bristol! I used to get laughed at when I left the region for pronouncing the L in yolk, folk, balcony, Holmes. Think it’s regional. And I don’t have an accent as such, just certain words... do you say reely for really too?

Is it not normal to pronounce the L in balcony??

I thought pontypandy was fictional! I actually Googled before I posted and there is a pontypandy lane in Caerphilly, must have glanced at that and decided it was real

I used to live near Summerseat in Bury Greater Manchester I used to get very confused when people talked about going to Somerset on holiday, when I was a child.

Well I’ve been in and out of Portsmouth many times in ferries and never knew it was an island! I’m 61! So it’s like New York City. Wow just wow!

I've only just found out that the material jersey is named after the island of Jersey because it was originally produced there.
And I'm from Jersey!

Catchit DH and I always say that about Pontefract, it sounds so Welsh how can it be in Yorkshire?! The other thing which we were stunned by (years ago) was that Billericay isn’t in Ireland but in Essex!

For years I wouldn't eat mince pies because I didn't want to eat fruity-flavoured beef pies. Of course "mince meat" is not actually meat!!

Now I love them

Until I met my now DH, I always thought the sun went around the earth rather than vice versa.

Even now I had to quickly Google it before posting as I can never remember which is correct!

Such a simple mistake to make...

Pleeeeeease tell me that the poor innocent Terracotta Turtle husband will be getting a Terracotta turtle for Christmas? Now that we've seen its possible to buy them!

I'm considering getting one myself, because I know it will bring a smile every time I see it

I thought sea horses were the size of real horses...

And that ‘albeit’ was a separate word, pronounced ‘al-bite’, but similar in usage to ‘all be it.’

X2boys well I just learnt about Holyhead from you!

There's nothing deep and meaningful about the chicken joke, it's just something people have come up with, like a fan theory. It was what it was, just silly.

@oxcat1 you’ve just reminded me that until an embarrassingly late age (early thirties) I thought ‘ballache’ was pronounced like ‘bal-ash’ and meant something very fancy like when you do something with ‘flair’ etc. It was only reading MN I learned it was ‘ball-ache’ - and yes, I have used ‘bal-ash’ in a sentence with other humans before

Lol 2nd, tbh I had absolutely no idea how they managed to make beef so fruity! I don't know why I assumed mince meat was beef specifically, probably because it was brown and referred to as meat 😂

holdthewine

My DP just informed me there is a country called Djibouti. Pronounced Dja booty. It's not for from Eritrea apparently lol

I honestly cant believe peoples geography is so shocking.

TellMeItsNotTrue I may fashion the baby some kind of plant pot/tortoise hybrid costume and present him with that. it would not be the first time I have made a fancy dress costume from giant plant pots

Try this quiz. www.jetpunk.com/quizzes/how-many-countries-can-you-name

Or this one

www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/22274/countries-of-africa-quiz

I can usually get all of the Africa on time but run out of time on world.

Thedodgyend yes I guess you’re right but in the West Country we say “baul-cunny” instead of “balcunny” with a hard ‘a’ as in anatomy. It’s all about au instead of a I guess, not the L. Though people from Bristol (like my DM) but an L in words which don’t have one so area becomes areal...

And Holmes the surname was always pronounced with it’s L in my school.

Nikibabe I can only speak for myself but my Geography is actually excellent thanks (in the sense of where things are on a map, I’m not a Geographer) but don’t we all have mental blocks?

@holdthewine i didnt mean absolutely everyone. But how can some people have never heard of Eritrea or Djibouti.

I've also recently learned that Azerbaijan was part of the Soviet Union. I didn't even realise it had a border with Russia...

Lots of parts of the former soviet union didn't have borders with Russia, all of central asia for example (Kyrgystan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan)