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?

oh, pronunciation is terrible for mistakes like this

Luckily I never met a Penelope until I'd worked out it wasn't Penny-lope, and was just pleased someone warned me before I called Siobhán See-ob-han to her face.

lmao @ the twins Northerner! I remember at school telling my mum that there were two brothers who looked just like eachother...

"Are they twins?"

"I think so... one is in my year, and one is in year 3"

Of course I knew what a merang was - delicious with strawberries and cream. But I could never work out what those mer-ing-gew's were that the famous five used to eat all the time. (though I was only about 8)

Oh yes, I used to swim with a girl called Niamh, and always wondered why she had "Niamh" written on her kickboard when her name was Neeve!
LOL

As a child I always thought Dunkirk was in Scotland!! It's sounds much more Scottish than French!! [BLUSH]

There is a road in the town I now live that dh insisted on calling Es-plan- day. It is actually the Esplanade.

That Shepherd's pie was made with lamb and Cottage pie with beef.

axl rose? anaggram? please!!!!!

God I'm thick - even though I knew Dunkirk/war/France etc I still read that and thought "Is it not in Scotland then?"

My brain is mush - how can I know the information but still not connect the two?!?

Oral sex NAO

Notanotter...read the whole thread!!!

(oral sex)!!

That there is a reason the americans say a-LOO-min-um and we say al-you-MIN-ee-um. I have just been rude about their atrocious spelling for years.

What is the reason SJ?

It's dull really

Humphrey Davy isolated Aluminium in 1808 and called it alumium then in 1812 changed his mind and changed the name to aluminum (still following?) which the Americans dutifully still follow.

The Brits however pointed out that it didn't follow the convention of naming elements -ium like sodium, calcium, potassium etc (which he also isolated) so British scientists changed the ending to ium and added the syllable.

And if you learnt about the Davy safety lamp in school, it was the same Humphrey Davy

I also thought that Niamh and Neev were different names.

And I'm from Irish heritage!

I didn't know that Sue!

I still spend hours explaining to dw and her sister that Great Britain is not just England. Just like the West Indies is not just Jamaica.

That when you cut someone open you are yellow inside!

Neither did I until about 6 months ago. Still, plenty of other areas to be rude about American spelling and pronunciation though

I think your fat is yellowy/white isn't it?

Yes that's right Sue but when I watched my first operation as a student nurse I was soooo surprised. I was expecting red!

but surely some of it is pink or red? Is yellow the predominant colour then?

We can swop pointless bits of info all day Medulla!

When you make the first cut it takes a few seconds for the blood to come through so the first thing you see is yellow (looks like pomegranete(sp?) seeds but yellow).

We once had a lovely meal out in which DH was quizzing his sister about what the insides of people smelled like.

I swear the waiters were scared of us.

For YEARS I thought mint sauce was mince sauce...NO IDEA why, I knew it was made with mint!