what stunningly obvious pieces of knowledge escaped you for years and years?

[thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat]

I managed 25 years of life without knowing who Pele was. I managed 36 years without knowing a dodge was a kind of american car. dh managed 25 years without realising that the name The Beatles was a play on the word beat. how do educated well-read people manage stuff like this? and don't you love it when you learn something like that?

like this, apparently

I didn't realise until a couple of years ago that a foot in measurement is well ..about the size of a man's foot.

Also thought for years as a child (go on then until about being 20) that all the white dog poo you used to see on the street was from white dogs. Mmmm.

that the world was a fair place and baddies always got their comeupance (ooh how deep)

as a point of info, salubrious actually means healthy or wholesome - from the Latin salus.

For many years I thought hirsute meant something like suave and sophisticated ( too many romantic fiction novels)

Going back to the Beatles, I didn't know they were an English group until I was informed of it by an American pen friend when I was 14. I think I assumed that all pop singers/bands were American.

Also, that babies were born from their mother's navals, or possibly their breasts! I didn't beleve that at 14, I hasten to add!!

sorry iota, am pmsl at the hirsute heroes...

We have a manager at work here who always says 'Pacific' when she means 'specific'. I never know whether to point out her error.

I know Mrs B and I pride myself on my linguistic skills - it still rankles

I found out last night that the green bugs that we get loads of at this time of the year are called Speckled Bush Crickets, and the females have an egg laying tube called an ovipositor. Here's a picture green bug .

Oh, I thought for ages that "dishy" meant "stringy and old". One of my uncles was described as "dishy" by an English relative (God knows why!), and my parents decided we should call him "uncle dishy".

And I did believe, for a while, that "Sigh" was pronounced "Sig-huh". I didn't understand why people in comic strips were always saying "Sig-huh".

I had a friend who thought Whodunnit was pronounced Whod - unit!

I could never understand why my parents wouldn't stop at pubs that said they were a Free House! LOL

My pet hate is people who incorrectly use the word ignorant to mean ignoring someone - it's very commonly misused and I wince everytime.

In the meantime I used to think that a spendthrift was someone who saved their money.

DP and MIL still laugh at this, but I was gobsmacked to see a robin out and about in june. I just assumed they were christmas birds and migrated somewhere for the summer.

Used to think WHSmiths was pronounced whismiths

I was in my 20s before I found out that "misled" was pronounced "miss-ledd" as opposed to "mizzled" .

I was 30 before I realised that in many cases you could tell if some was Jewish by their name (as in surnames ending in mon/man) or how they looked. Actually, I am quite proud of that one, as it was due to my parents' care in bringing us up to be blind to these so-called "differences", as they came from a society (SOuth Africa) where you were very aware of where people came from and what religion they were (as well as the colour issue of course).

Sorry, haven't read whole therad, but Piffle -
De-try-tus is the AMERICAN pronounciation.
In the Uk it is ''Det-rit-us'.

Until recently my brother used to think ToysRus was pronounced Toy Rus - obviously we now call it Toy Rus!!

Hope I'm right! I always say 'det-rit-us'
Or do i? Have confused myself now!!

Until I was pregnant with ds I thought that the umbilical cord of the baby connected to the inside of the mum's belly button - a friend admitted she had thought the same too.

lol Blu! Where do you put the emphasis though?

Doesn't parasol mean against the sun ie it stops it?