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?

I asked last week where do Melons actually grow and you never see them. They grow on the ground apparently. I'm 30 and this was like an epiphany.

I did Nikki’s quiz and got 54% lots I knew but couldn’t spell accurately (including many of the ‘Stans just mentioned). Not sure I trust a quiz which lists Cyprus as in Asia though! Sucker for a quiz!

Enjoying this thread as on enforced rest through illness. (Hence doing quizzes!) Just love terracotta - I’m sure it’s all about terrapins and I can see how your brain made that connection and kept it.

@holdthewine ahh yes sorry, idiot here didn’t take into account regional accents! (I’m very south east)

Do threads in chat get deleted? I don’t want to lose the record of #terracottatoise

Yes holdthewine! I thought Asdle was a supermarket just in Bristol until my Somerset-born partner explained that his mom actually shopped in Asda but the random L pops up in many words.

I am crying at 'bal-ash' being a fancy word!!

I was giving a speech and kept using the word epitome but pronounced it "epp-ee-tome" (tome rhyming with home). Someone corrected me and it was to my shame I had actually heard that word but never put two and two together.

@MissionItsPossible bal-ash was not my finest moment considering I’m 33 I’ve used ballache to describe many a fancy thing.

My mum used to pronounce portakabin as por-tack-a-bin, rather than por-ta-cab-in (as in, a portable cabin).

The look on her face when she heard me say the word was amazing. You could almost see the penny drop.

The road to MIL's house passes a large yard with a lot of old portakabins. DH and I call it the por-tack-a-bin gravy-yard.

@TheDodgyEnd can you use bal-ash in a sentence please?

@Foggymist

“Strictly is jam packed full of ballache”

Or...

“Wow look at the ballache that dancer employed during that routine”

Thanks, that's hilarious How/where did that meaning come from for you??

Foggy it just made perfect sense to be honest 🙄 and I just assumed ball-ache was two separate words so when I saw ballache written on MN I thought ‘wow, loads of people know this word but it’s always out of context’ ....then the penny dropped and I skulked away sheepishly.

Dh is a history teacher and gets asked all sorts of jaw-droppingly dim questions by kids (most of which are a bit forgivable because of their age). But once he was doing a big timeline of historical periods for a GCSE class and one kid piped up "So when did all the stuff in Lord of the Rings happen?" There was a stunned silence, then the whole class fell about laughing.

Portsmouth (Portsea Island) is absolutely entirely surrounded by water and you have to cross a bridge on one of the three roads to get onto it.

It is certainly possible to circumnavigate in a boat and this is done quite regularly by scout troops and sailing clubs. There a couple of low bridges along the Hilsea creek (you may have to duck at high tide!) but it’s perfectly doable!

In fairness, if someone started talking to me about Eritrea or Djibouti I would probably adopt a serious face and nod knowingly as I'd definitely assume it was a skin condition until I googled it.

So maybe it's not such a surprise that I'm married to a man who thinks terracotta is reptilian...

(also, I just googled whether they were amphibians or reptile so not to show myself up further than already )

@OhOurBilly you really have made this thread pure genius - I’m so glad I posted purely for your tale!!!

Right I’m off to buy a terracotta tortoise to immortalise your story and to give my home a bit of bal-ash 😂

Thanks for all your posts everyone

Thanks to this thread I now know the name of the tortoise sold in pet shops, "Terrapins".
People do eat tortoises in some parts of the Caribbean. It's meant to be illegal to trade both meat and shells but people still do it.

The reason giant tortoises nearly became extinct in galapagos is that all the sailors ate them.

They were, apparently, delicious, and quite unlike anything else.

turtles are often eaten in places where they are commonly found.

Terrapins which are sold in pet shops have feet and claws, not flippers. Terrapins are also fresh water. Flippers = turtles

Wait! What?

If they they are have claws then what are they if they are not tortoises

From my understanding tortoises = legs =land
Turtle = flippers = sea

Terrapins= claws = fresh water. what are they ? Not even joking

quencher - yes you are right - feet and claws = tortoises
feet and claws and live in fresh water = terrapins
flipper = turtles

terrapins are the little mini tortoise like creatures sold in fish shops and pet shops.
Red eared fresh water terrapin. They are actually sold as babies, and as adults can be a foot across. Unfortunately most pet ones don't make it to that size

They were, apparently, delicious, and quite unlike anything else.

Mostly, they're really easy to catch.

Mostly, they're really easy to catch

That really tickled me

@Lweji that made me laugh 😂

there is going to be a 'run' on small terracotta tortoises on Amazon.

I may need one for my kitchen windowsill too.

Unlike the real giant ones, who couldnt run fast enough...

Mostly, they're really easy to catch

but seriously there are diary entries from the time with ecstatic descriptions of the tast of tortoise.