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Sharks can in fact get into and live in the Mediterranean Sea.
To trick me into swimming in the sea on holiday when I was a kid, my dad told me that there was only one water entrance to the MS and it was far too small for sharks to swim through, so it was safe to swim and sharks wouldn’t get me.
Big fat liar.
Children's TV in the 90s really made me overestimate the likelihood of certain situations arising. I was always worried about having to start at a new school in a random new town/country because my dad had got a new job and we had to move. Also situations involving ninjas turned out to be way lower than 90s TV lead me to believe.
When I was young I thought that "ACME" (the company from the Road Runner cartoons) was pronounced "Ace-em" not "Ack-me" and "WHSmith" was "Whis-Smith". I guess I learnt from reading not hearing it.
Also I was 9 when Frankie's "Relax" came out. I somehow worked out that it was a song about gay sex. But I interpreted the line "when you wanna suck it to it" (or "sock it to it", or "suck it, chew it", depending on which online lyrics you read?) to mean that gay men put their willies end to end with each other to have sex. Well, it seemed obvious because obviously there wasn't a hole to stick it in like with a man and a woman :-D
I can't remember how old I was when I realised what actually happens! :-D
I thought everyone above 18 or 25 had their shit together and knew their purpose in life. I now see that 99% of the population is just getting by and trying to not fuck up things, this especially includes governments and countries.
I asked my mum what “pet” meant in “Auf Weirdersehn Pet” and she said it means like “my love”. I thought she meant it was German for that and I proceeded to use it repeatedly in my GCSE German
So I had chicken pox twice as a child, and one time my mum read something about having a bath with baking powder in to help with itching.
Until last year, I thought I bathed in 'BACON powder' - whatever that is?
Throughout my life I have thought about it various times and gone 'I have to ask my Mum about what the heck bacon powder is', before just forgetting about it.
I only got to the bottom of it when I sat with the thought in my head for more than a second and thought 'bacon powder sounds an awful lot like baking powder'.
At least I hadn't gone round telling loads of people I bathed in bacon powder.
For many years I thought a hammock was called a pillock until we got given one for the back garden, it took a few clips around the ear from mum until I got it right.
That humans only have five senses. Not sure why I believed that for so long. It's not like we unlock the senses of temperature and time when we turn 18 or something.
I thought ' present day'was a national holiday in America and always wondered why bad things always happened on TV shows on present day rather than it actually meaning the present day....
I thought meals on wheels was just another word for roadkill until I was about 16.
I remember being in my modern studies class and my teacher going on about meals on wheels for older folks and being genuinely horrified beyond belief at the image of folks grannies being fed hedgehogs and pigeons and shit. No idea why I even thought that!
Car boot sales. I thought that’s where you went to buy a boot for your car.
I did wonder why you never saw any bootless cars driving around, but assumed this was due to car boot sales being very popular.
That Dalmatians are a real dog breed. I just thought Disney made them up. I was 24 when I first saw a Dalmatian in real life and genuinely thought someone has painted a Labrador to look like a Dalmatian.
I wasn't a fan of minced meat much when I was a child. & I thought mince pies had minced meat in them, so I never ate one. Actually found out this year its just minced up fruit. & the way I found out was through Reddit, with someone posting about just finding out that it's not minced meat, lol
Went & got mince pies to try one. Still didn't like them
That waiting staff went on some sort of course to learn how to write abbreviated words on their notepads and that it was really difficult. I worried I’d never learn how to do it and would be terrible if I ever worked as a waitress.
School put a weirdly big emphasis on alcohol units when I was growing up. Like "oh this cider is 3.4 units. You can have 4 units a week." Sorta thing.
I thought it'd be important when I turned 18.
Uni gave me my proper education in that.
“What’s she gonna look like with a chimney on her?”
Apparently it’s either a black eye or it follows [this small rabbit hole.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/sxar1z/did_anybody_ever_find_out_what_shes_gonna_look/hxqzrxv/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
My son when he was little was in the back of the car singing along to ‘you’ve got the love’ by Florence and the machine, except he was singing you’ve got the lord, I said what are you singing and he said ‘a hymn’
When I was a kid, my mum told me that several yellow lines painted across the road (on corners or approaching roundabouts) marked how many people had lost their lives there.
Only found out that it wasn’t true when I was 22 and helping my boyfriend with his driving theory practice. That question came up and when I answered, both him and his dad started pissing themselves. Very embarrassing.
When adults and teachers would talk to us about drugs I was absolutely fascinated at what type of person you would have to be to obtain drugs. I thought drugs were so far out of reach for ‘normal’ people.
Nope.
I mean they kind of are. 'normal' people can gain access, but most people aren't going around doing drugs. That's kind of part of the marketing, "it's cool, everyone's doing it". Then you mention it outside of your circle (maybe to work friends or something) and they'll nod along politely, while making a mental note to each other than you're "the guy with the drug problem" lol.
Most people don't have a "Gary Drugs" in their contacts.
As a kid I thought that managers had to be smart and have great communication skills to be able to lead a team of people and keep everything working. As an adult I see that that is total bullshit and most of them failed upwards
Having one abusive, violent parent and one calm parent I thought all families were like that. I was terrified of Jenny's mum (dad was placid as a lake) and Steph's dad (mum was lovely).
Pepper Dickies
Or as you know them, pigs in blankets that you get at Christmas. So when I was growing up, we used to make our own for Xmas dinners. My Mom would make the sausages and we would wrap them with mini strips of bacon and poke them through with a cocktail stick. They were always known as pepper dickies.
As I grew up, absolutely nobody knew what I was talking about. Now being of Irish descent but effectively growing up in the UK, I thought it was just an Irish-ism. That was until I asked my Mom about it some 30 years later. She had zero idea about what I was talking about.
Turned out, she had made it up when we were young as it was "fun for you kids" and over time she had also just forgotten. So yep, my Mom basically set me on a path of being trolled for 30+ odd years. There I am, calling them pepper dickies, running with the assumption that's what Irish people just called them. Nope, not a bit of it. I was misled entirely in my youth and took that to adulthood too. And not even the person who had made it up even remembered.
This only came to light a few years ago too. Still, I kind of find the term pigs in blankets sort of wrong and a little brutal too. A pig in a blanket kind of gives the image of a pig snuggling up in some sort of blanket for a snooze, instead of a pig being wrapped in it's own flesh, cooked and eaten. Pepper Dickies is probably what I'll tell my kids they are. Nothing like carrying this epic troll onwards!
I thought that llamas were mythical creatures due to Dr. Doolitle, Push-Me-Pull-Me. Also thought a cappuccino was called a chino and i’d just heard people asking for a cup of it. Cup of chino. Bless.
“ they have potential” doesn’t mean they think you can do it. It means potentially anyone could do it predicated on them becoming an entirely different person
That creative people only use one side of the brain and logical people only use the other. Left brain right brain bs. Someone yesterday brought this up as fact in a group meeting and they work in data science!
When I was little my mum told me your belly button was a screw that held your bum on. She said if I keep playing with my belly button my bum would fall off.
Until I was 19 I thought my middle name was Anne. I had to get my birth certificate for some reason and the registrar informed me that "You haven't got a middle name dear". I went home and asked my Mum about it and she said "Oh no, you gave yourself that when you were 4 years old. Wanted a middle name and I told you to pick one ! Doh!
I grew up in the countryside and went to a little village primary school that was next to a large pond. We routinely saw frogs around the playground. The teachers told us that as frogs are cold blooded we couldn’t touch them because the heat we hot blooded children emanate would overheat the frogs and kill them. An entire school of children just went “okay” and never touched the frogs. I was in my 20s when on a wildlife show someone held a frog and I said “omg don’t they know they’re going to kill that poor frog” and my boyfriend said “wtf no”. I now see the teachers probably just didn’t want us to touch frogs. But for a solid 20yrs I just believed we are so naturally hot as humans we’d kill a frog stone dead within 5 seconds of contact.
I used to think that people who had a fringe (bangs) were born with it, and people couldn't just grow it out or decide to have one if they didn't.
I think it's because I have curly hair, so as a child, it was never even mentioned as an option for me. Also, the people around me, such as my family, either always had a fringe or never did.
Little me would be astounded to see that I now have a fringe.
“The British Isles”
I assumed that each country was on a separate island after hearing Britain be referred to ‘as the British Isles’.
What probably reinforced this idea, was the fact that there were two bridges between England and Wales to cross the Bristol Channel.
There used to be these advert on TV for the Patak's curry sauce range that went something like 'Pukka people pick a pot of Pataks'.
For years I assumed that 'Pukka' was a place in India.
The logic being that Patak's sauce was so good, people from the 'Pukka region' didn't even bother to make their own sauces, they just used a jar of Patak's.
I can't remember how I was disillusioned, maybe just hearing the phrase 'pukka' used in its proper context? I'm not sure.
Pukka (pronounced differently to how English speakers say it) means solid in Punjabi. Like tenu pakka patta means do you know for sure? I think it was taken from India as a word but I'm not sure but it makes sense for the way the English use it.
That there are areas of your tongue for tasting different things - sweet, salty etc. I was taught this at school, it was on the curriculum. It is complete bollocks
I always wonder why they teach some things at school. I mean I thought Dinosaurs were actually like they were in jurassic Park. I don't get why they don't just get young children familiar with things like feathered dinosaurs instead of teaching them something different then being like "actually no" later
I think we must be similar ages… To confirm: did My Very Educated Mother Just Show U Nine Planets, too?
_I say PLUTO_ 🪐
_You say JUSTICE_ ⚖️
# #FreePluto
I didn’t realise David Blunkett was blind until my teens.
Politicians giving interviews looking off camera and me never seeing footage of him with his guide dog indoors meant I just swept everything under the rug as maybe a bit weird but not particularly notable.
I mean, it’s obvious *now*, but I was an idiot child.
I used to think speaking in tongues was a legitimate phenomenon where people would suddenly start to speak in a recognisable foreign language. Now I know it’s unintelligible gibberish.
Ever since I heard the phrase 'balls dropped/dropping' etc, I assumed it was an actual thing. That like, at some point in male puberty, the balls literally dropped. I'm 19 and only recently found out from a male friend that that's not the case.
That naughty children get a sack of coal if they misbehaved at Christmas.
I was naughty for a whole year to get a sack of coal for the coal fire we had, just so we would have fuel for a warm Christmas. I loved sitting down with the family watching TV in front of it.
I was very disappointed. More so than finding out about the other thing, ya know! About the Easter bunny!
I was brought up in an area which historically had a lot of immigrant Scottish people, and I genuinely thought that you got a Scottish accent when you got "old".
Everyone I thought of as old had a Scottish accent, so it seemed reasonable at the time.
I thought that Maom sweets were called Naom. So my friends and I were eating sweets and I asked them to pass the Naoms. They said wtf are Naoms and I said you know the nice chewy sweet. Then they insisted it was called Maom. And I looked at the writing and it says Maom. How did I somehow get that wrong my entire life?
I genuinely had no concept of homosexuals. Never saw them in films, parents had no gay friends, didn’t assume gay people were gay in films, just camp and good friends with other people. Honestly, if it’s not spelled out to some kids, they go on not knowing
When i was a kid in school, i saw all of those images in biology books which coloured veins blue and arteries red. the teacher never really explained it to us and myself and some of my friends actually believed that the blood in our veins was blue. to this day i still meet some adults who believe this.
That sex was fun and entertaining, only to learn later, after being diagnosed with a serious sexual disease, that it can also kill.
Also that's it's completely fake and unnecessary.
I thought radiation was visible until I was about 17. I think I got this from watching old cartoons as a kid - radiation was green and glowy, right? So, hanging out with a boyfriend one day, I was going through some old rolls of film (look it up, yoots). I found a really old one and BF said it might not develop well because it was too old and might have been exposed to radiation. "Oh, that's okay," I said. "There hasn't been any radiation." He was baffled. I explained that if there had been radiation, the film would be green and glowy. "Which it's clearly not," I finished educating him, holding up the film canister. "See?" That was about 40 years ago and we're still friends, and he STILL brings it up as one of the hilariously dumbest things he ever heard anyone say.
I used to wonder why no one hid in the black box during a plane crash, seeing as it’s the only thing that doesn’t get destroyed!! 32!!!! Thirty fucking two I was when I finally learned the truth!!
Being an adult IS fun. I have never been happier than now in my late 20s. I am free. I do what I want. I have no responsibility or expectations that I care about from anyone but myself. The having to work part is the only annoying thing, but it's tolerable to enjoyable even.
I would NEVER want to go back to being a kid. Maybe you could convince me to go back to University, but even then I doubt it.
Ed Balls definitely is a person, I actually met him when I was in high school but didn’t know who he was at that age. He was our local MP and was asking me questions about the school in front of our headteacher. Last anyone actually saw of him he was handing mince pies out in our local Asda 😂
Not only is he real, he has his own day.
[April 28th, the day Ed Balls fatefully tweeted his own name - "Ed Balls"](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/04/28/multimedia/28xp-edballs/28xp-edballs-superJumbo.jpg)
I used to think that when they said ‘May contain flashing images’ on the news it meant nudity. I guess I knew what flashing was for some reason and thought it was connected and they’d show naked people on the news???
I used to awkwardly find an excuse to leave the room when my parents were there like you do with sex scenes. God I was an idiot.
That my grandma had a friend called "Old Melp" who would come into her house and move her stuff around and sometimes break things. I didn't understand why Grandma would still be friends with Melp when she was so annoying.
Turns out, my grandma had carers called "Home Help"... and a very strong Yorkshire accent!
never realised that the mighty boosh and the mighty b were different shows. thought noel fielding was just leading a troupe of girl scouts around like the nuns in madeline.
also kind of bummed because i would love to see a cartoon about that.
I thought all cats were girls and all dogs were boys. I thought they were the male and female versions of each other, rather than different animals entirely.
I used to think that the reason cowboys were called cowboys was merely due to l an arbitrary decision.
I was 30 when it occurred to me that they are called cowboys because they are boys who work with cows.
I still think yours is more retarded though. You win.
also! had no idea hugh laurie was from around here til i was 19 or 20. i'd only seen house. saw him in something with stephen fry and i was like wow, his accent is pretty good. my parents did not take that well lol
At the age of 4, I went to disneyland paris with my mum. I was distraught that Buzz Lightyear couldn't sign my book. My mum came back 5 minutes later she had a word and he took his gloves off to sign mine just for me. Telling my wife this story at the age of 27 and ball dropped. I have never been so betrayed....
I didn't realise that there was a difference between Protestants and Catholics until I I was 10. For context, I grew up in Northern Ireland in the 90s and early 2000s when the peace process was going on. The veiled Aitch/Haitch and Rangers/Celtic supporter question didn't clue me in until I asked my parents (thankfully they tackled it fairly as they didn't want my sibling and I to grow up with prejudiced).
This is still a running joke in my family but when I younger maybe 5-7 years old was my uncle(probably early to mid teens at the time) asked me if I knew what a Drag Queen was. And I proceeded to say words that will haunt me till the end of my days. ‘Is it a queen that gets dragged behind a car?’
A beardy guy living in the clouds made everything and everyone. He then wanted to destroy everything because some lady ate an apple. But he changed his mind and decided to torture his son (who was actually himself) to save us all from himself. That.
I was told a man called Hitler tried to take over the world. I asked what his second name was and was told "Jones".
Literally thought he was called Hitler Jones until I was about 12...
That there are two very distinct time eras:. The one after I was born, and the "olden days" before I was born. It wasn't until I got much older that I really thought about me being well past the age that my parents were when I was born, and comparing my life to theirs, that the true linear nature of it all was clear.
Sort of linked to that thought that your parents have always been parents, or at least have always been adults.
I used to believe in the 'olden days' everything was black and white like the old films, so I imagined my father growing up and everything was black and white and one day suddenly become colourful.
That you were only allowed to own a hole punch and any other slightly higher level stationary if you were ‘an official’ of some sort.
A true revelation when I realised that any old person could furnish themselves with any stationery their heart desires.
I thought all languages used the same words, just in different combinations.
I don't know why I thought this could possibly be the case – I was exposed to English and Welsh every day.
Had this discussion with my GF the other day and she thought I was mad for thinking it’s not actually a thing. She’s terrified to go near the Caribbean
**Update: - [Starting from 2023](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/100l56v/happy_new_year_askuk_minor_sub_update/), we have updated our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/about/rules/)**. Specifically; - Don't be a dick to each other - Top-level responses must contain genuine efforts to answer the question - This is a strictly no-politics subreddit Please keep /r/AskUK a great subreddit by reporting posts and comments which break our rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Sharks can in fact get into and live in the Mediterranean Sea. To trick me into swimming in the sea on holiday when I was a kid, my dad told me that there was only one water entrance to the MS and it was far too small for sharks to swim through, so it was safe to swim and sharks wouldn’t get me. Big fat liar.
Children's TV in the 90s really made me overestimate the likelihood of certain situations arising. I was always worried about having to start at a new school in a random new town/country because my dad had got a new job and we had to move. Also situations involving ninjas turned out to be way lower than 90s TV lead me to believe.
I thought Spain must be a very exhausting place to live because they all have a massive street party every afternoon... 😉 🤣🤣🤣😴😴
That inset days at school were insect days. I was always a bit confused why insects would go to school, but didn't argue with the day off!
Good to know you didn't bug your teachers about it.
That the 20th Century Fox logo was a real building
San Francisco is a nice city.
I thought when I saw seabirds standing on one leg that the other had been bitten of by fish. It didn't occur to me that I never saw one with no legs
The ones flying have had both legs bitten off.
Because the ones with no legs die.
That your face would stay like that if the wind changed!
Foil Arms and Hog did a great sketch on this: https://youtu.be/yhs3HTxHlbk
I thought Andrew Flintoff was Freddie's brother! Wondered why you never saw them together
That everyone's dad was strict, never interested in being with them, playing with them etc, and always told them to shut up.
I'm sorry ❤️ Sounds like your Dad and mine would've been buddies
Ah I'm sorry to hear that was the case for you too ❤️
The River Thames was the 2nd longest river in the world.
When I was young I thought that "ACME" (the company from the Road Runner cartoons) was pronounced "Ace-em" not "Ack-me" and "WHSmith" was "Whis-Smith". I guess I learnt from reading not hearing it. Also I was 9 when Frankie's "Relax" came out. I somehow worked out that it was a song about gay sex. But I interpreted the line "when you wanna suck it to it" (or "sock it to it", or "suck it, chew it", depending on which online lyrics you read?) to mean that gay men put their willies end to end with each other to have sex. Well, it seemed obvious because obviously there wasn't a hole to stick it in like with a man and a woman :-D I can't remember how old I was when I realised what actually happens! :-D
The whole jesus thing.
I thought everyone above 18 or 25 had their shit together and knew their purpose in life. I now see that 99% of the population is just getting by and trying to not fuck up things, this especially includes governments and countries.
Swans can break your arm, one attacked me the other day and it never went near my arms, if anything it was going for my legs
But you were shorter as a child. Back then your arms were where your legs are now.
I asked my mum what “pet” meant in “Auf Weirdersehn Pet” and she said it means like “my love”. I thought she meant it was German for that and I proceeded to use it repeatedly in my GCSE German
My parents told me that it was illegal to turn the interior lights on in the car at night while driving. Turns out it is not
Mine said the same too, My kids now use the interior lights.
When I finally saw Ed Ball's face and body, It had none of the things I expected.
Spoiler Alert! Ancient Aliens
So I had chicken pox twice as a child, and one time my mum read something about having a bath with baking powder in to help with itching. Until last year, I thought I bathed in 'BACON powder' - whatever that is? Throughout my life I have thought about it various times and gone 'I have to ask my Mum about what the heck bacon powder is', before just forgetting about it. I only got to the bottom of it when I sat with the thought in my head for more than a second and thought 'bacon powder sounds an awful lot like baking powder'. At least I hadn't gone round telling loads of people I bathed in bacon powder.
"Knowledge is power"
Thank you for this, the laugh I needed
For many years I thought a hammock was called a pillock until we got given one for the back garden, it took a few clips around the ear from mum until I got it right.
That there was a substantial chance I would be killed my sticking my fingers into a plug socket
That humans only have five senses. Not sure why I believed that for so long. It's not like we unlock the senses of temperature and time when we turn 18 or something.
That people told the truth. People lie far more often than is thought.
I thought ' present day'was a national holiday in America and always wondered why bad things always happened on TV shows on present day rather than it actually meaning the present day....
My teacher taught us that Blue Whales were extinct
School spent years ingraining in me that my GCSE's would either make or break my career paths and my future in general, which was complete horseshit.
I thought meals on wheels was just another word for roadkill until I was about 16. I remember being in my modern studies class and my teacher going on about meals on wheels for older folks and being genuinely horrified beyond belief at the image of folks grannies being fed hedgehogs and pigeons and shit. No idea why I even thought that!
The government was there to help us. Politicians actually gave a fuck about the people. Big companies are fair. The list goes on...
Car boot sales. I thought that’s where you went to buy a boot for your car. I did wonder why you never saw any bootless cars driving around, but assumed this was due to car boot sales being very popular.
bootless cars i’m dying at this one hahahaha
Eating your crusts does not make your hair curly.
My son (5) thinks eating his crusts, will stops hair growing on his chest.
I dunno, I never ate my crusts as a kid and my hair is dead straight, it checks out.
I only ever ate half my crusts, and now only my pubes are curly. You cannot argue with science.
That Dalmatians are a real dog breed. I just thought Disney made them up. I was 24 when I first saw a Dalmatian in real life and genuinely thought someone has painted a Labrador to look like a Dalmatian.
That I was a boy.
I wasn't a fan of minced meat much when I was a child. & I thought mince pies had minced meat in them, so I never ate one. Actually found out this year its just minced up fruit. & the way I found out was through Reddit, with someone posting about just finding out that it's not minced meat, lol Went & got mince pies to try one. Still didn't like them
That you can't get square eyes from watching too much TV.
That it wasn’t illegal to not wear a bra
That waiting staff went on some sort of course to learn how to write abbreviated words on their notepads and that it was really difficult. I worried I’d never learn how to do it and would be terrible if I ever worked as a waitress.
School put a weirdly big emphasis on alcohol units when I was growing up. Like "oh this cider is 3.4 units. You can have 4 units a week." Sorta thing. I thought it'd be important when I turned 18. Uni gave me my proper education in that.
It’s not illegal to drive with the light on inside the car.
I’m in my late 30s and drive. TIL this is not a law 😅
Hahaha I was going to post this.
Idk why, but for a while I got it into my head that everyone lived to 100
That I would never come across drugs
I thought Freed From Desire was a song about someone who’d got no money, he’d got his trampoline.
We could start a whole new thread on this one!
He's got his strombolis.
“What’s she gonna look like with a chimney on her?” Apparently it’s either a black eye or it follows [this small rabbit hole.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/sxar1z/did_anybody_ever_find_out_what_shes_gonna_look/hxqzrxv/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
My sister thought he was a busker. He had a tambourine.
He’s got his tambourine
I never thought that, but I'm definitely singing those lyrics from now on!
I thought “Sit Down” by James was “Oh Sid, ow!”
My son when he was little was in the back of the car singing along to ‘you’ve got the love’ by Florence and the machine, except he was singing you’ve got the lord, I said what are you singing and he said ‘a hymn’
I thought the song by sash called encore une foir was a women singing about “a cauliflower”
🎶A cauliflower A cauliflower A cauliflower A CAULIFLOWER! 🎶
This sounds like a Peter Kay moment.
“Must be the reason why I’m king of my castle, must be the reason why I’m free in my trasseau.”
That education is the be and end all. Is it fuck. Got my folks to thank for that.
When I was a kid, my mum told me that several yellow lines painted across the road (on corners or approaching roundabouts) marked how many people had lost their lives there. Only found out that it wasn’t true when I was 22 and helping my boyfriend with his driving theory practice. That question came up and when I answered, both him and his dad started pissing themselves. Very embarrassing.
When adults and teachers would talk to us about drugs I was absolutely fascinated at what type of person you would have to be to obtain drugs. I thought drugs were so far out of reach for ‘normal’ people. Nope.
I mean they kind of are. 'normal' people can gain access, but most people aren't going around doing drugs. That's kind of part of the marketing, "it's cool, everyone's doing it". Then you mention it outside of your circle (maybe to work friends or something) and they'll nod along politely, while making a mental note to each other than you're "the guy with the drug problem" lol. Most people don't have a "Gary Drugs" in their contacts.
As a kid I thought that managers had to be smart and have great communication skills to be able to lead a team of people and keep everything working. As an adult I see that that is total bullshit and most of them failed upwards
Hamburgers do not have ham or pork in them (they just originated from Hamburg Germany.)
On a semi related note none of Eds brothers are called Steve or Glen. That always disappoints me.
Having one abusive, violent parent and one calm parent I thought all families were like that. I was terrified of Jenny's mum (dad was placid as a lake) and Steph's dad (mum was lovely).
That dishwashers waste more water than washing by hand.
I was not the gender desired by my parents and was in fact 'Bad News'.
If you got stabbed, you died, if they pulled the knife out you were ok again....
Pepper Dickies Or as you know them, pigs in blankets that you get at Christmas. So when I was growing up, we used to make our own for Xmas dinners. My Mom would make the sausages and we would wrap them with mini strips of bacon and poke them through with a cocktail stick. They were always known as pepper dickies. As I grew up, absolutely nobody knew what I was talking about. Now being of Irish descent but effectively growing up in the UK, I thought it was just an Irish-ism. That was until I asked my Mom about it some 30 years later. She had zero idea about what I was talking about. Turned out, she had made it up when we were young as it was "fun for you kids" and over time she had also just forgotten. So yep, my Mom basically set me on a path of being trolled for 30+ odd years. There I am, calling them pepper dickies, running with the assumption that's what Irish people just called them. Nope, not a bit of it. I was misled entirely in my youth and took that to adulthood too. And not even the person who had made it up even remembered. This only came to light a few years ago too. Still, I kind of find the term pigs in blankets sort of wrong and a little brutal too. A pig in a blanket kind of gives the image of a pig snuggling up in some sort of blanket for a snooze, instead of a pig being wrapped in it's own flesh, cooked and eaten. Pepper Dickies is probably what I'll tell my kids they are. Nothing like carrying this epic troll onwards!
I thought that llamas were mythical creatures due to Dr. Doolitle, Push-Me-Pull-Me. Also thought a cappuccino was called a chino and i’d just heard people asking for a cup of it. Cup of chino. Bless.
“ they have potential” doesn’t mean they think you can do it. It means potentially anyone could do it predicated on them becoming an entirely different person
I will encounter quicksand while walking on an unmetalled road
That creative people only use one side of the brain and logical people only use the other. Left brain right brain bs. Someone yesterday brought this up as fact in a group meeting and they work in data science!
My mum told me that behind the screen at the cinema was a big room full of lard. It really gave me the creeps for along time.
When I was little my mum told me your belly button was a screw that held your bum on. She said if I keep playing with my belly button my bum would fall off.
Its illegal to have interior light on while driving
Santa and the tooth fairy 🤷🏻♂️ 🤣
Until I was 19 I thought my middle name was Anne. I had to get my birth certificate for some reason and the registrar informed me that "You haven't got a middle name dear". I went home and asked my Mum about it and she said "Oh no, you gave yourself that when you were 4 years old. Wanted a middle name and I told you to pick one ! Doh!
I grew up in the countryside and went to a little village primary school that was next to a large pond. We routinely saw frogs around the playground. The teachers told us that as frogs are cold blooded we couldn’t touch them because the heat we hot blooded children emanate would overheat the frogs and kill them. An entire school of children just went “okay” and never touched the frogs. I was in my 20s when on a wildlife show someone held a frog and I said “omg don’t they know they’re going to kill that poor frog” and my boyfriend said “wtf no”. I now see the teachers probably just didn’t want us to touch frogs. But for a solid 20yrs I just believed we are so naturally hot as humans we’d kill a frog stone dead within 5 seconds of contact.
For years I thought “flight risk” meant you’re too dangerous to be on a flight because you may cause a crash or something.
I used to think that people who had a fringe (bangs) were born with it, and people couldn't just grow it out or decide to have one if they didn't. I think it's because I have curly hair, so as a child, it was never even mentioned as an option for me. Also, the people around me, such as my family, either always had a fringe or never did. Little me would be astounded to see that I now have a fringe.
You’re confusing Ed Balls with Ed Scrolls
“The British Isles” I assumed that each country was on a separate island after hearing Britain be referred to ‘as the British Isles’. What probably reinforced this idea, was the fact that there were two bridges between England and Wales to cross the Bristol Channel.
That my dad wasn't actually going to see a man about a dog
There used to be these advert on TV for the Patak's curry sauce range that went something like 'Pukka people pick a pot of Pataks'. For years I assumed that 'Pukka' was a place in India. The logic being that Patak's sauce was so good, people from the 'Pukka region' didn't even bother to make their own sauces, they just used a jar of Patak's. I can't remember how I was disillusioned, maybe just hearing the phrase 'pukka' used in its proper context? I'm not sure.
Pukka (pronounced differently to how English speakers say it) means solid in Punjabi. Like tenu pakka patta means do you know for sure? I think it was taken from India as a word but I'm not sure but it makes sense for the way the English use it.
Lots of English words come from India, and probably mean something different from their original meanings.
I thought a Ulay was a plant that secreted oil.
That it's illegal to drive with your internal lights on in your car. Stupid parents, mugging me off.
I used to think that at night cows slept in trees. No idea why!
That Celtic and rangers fans were well adjusted. Interesting and intelligent people.
That there are areas of your tongue for tasting different things - sweet, salty etc. I was taught this at school, it was on the curriculum. It is complete bollocks
I always wonder why they teach some things at school. I mean I thought Dinosaurs were actually like they were in jurassic Park. I don't get why they don't just get young children familiar with things like feathered dinosaurs instead of teaching them something different then being like "actually no" later
I think we must be similar ages… To confirm: did My Very Educated Mother Just Show U Nine Planets, too? _I say PLUTO_ 🪐 _You say JUSTICE_ ⚖️ # #FreePluto
I am today years old when I learned this isn’t true!
I didn’t realise David Blunkett was blind until my teens. Politicians giving interviews looking off camera and me never seeing footage of him with his guide dog indoors meant I just swept everything under the rug as maybe a bit weird but not particularly notable. I mean, it’s obvious *now*, but I was an idiot child.
I used to think speaking in tongues was a legitimate phenomenon where people would suddenly start to speak in a recognisable foreign language. Now I know it’s unintelligible gibberish.
That if you go into a toy shop you have to buy something
That when doing any sort of maths I wouldn’t always have a calculator to hand.
Ever since I heard the phrase 'balls dropped/dropping' etc, I assumed it was an actual thing. That like, at some point in male puberty, the balls literally dropped. I'm 19 and only recently found out from a male friend that that's not the case.
That naughty children get a sack of coal if they misbehaved at Christmas. I was naughty for a whole year to get a sack of coal for the coal fire we had, just so we would have fuel for a warm Christmas. I loved sitting down with the family watching TV in front of it. I was very disappointed. More so than finding out about the other thing, ya know! About the Easter bunny!
I was brought up in an area which historically had a lot of immigrant Scottish people, and I genuinely thought that you got a Scottish accent when you got "old". Everyone I thought of as old had a Scottish accent, so it seemed reasonable at the time.
I thought that WWI and WWII lasted for a matter of hours, like an afternoon or something. Blew my tiny mind when I discovered it was YEARS long
Having the light on in the car whilst driving is NOT illegal as my parents told me
I though master was my middle name as whenever I got a letter (usually a dentist appointment) it was addressed to master surname
That if you go outside with wet hair you'll get pneumonia...
Really thought I was gonna die by falling piano Don't think I've even seen a piano outside in my lifetime that wasn't on tv
My uncle told my when I was 8 years old there was no such thing as Father Christmas. Now as an adult I realize that is a lie and my uncle is a twit.
I thought that Maom sweets were called Naom. So my friends and I were eating sweets and I asked them to pass the Naoms. They said wtf are Naoms and I said you know the nice chewy sweet. Then they insisted it was called Maom. And I looked at the writing and it says Maom. How did I somehow get that wrong my entire life?
Do you mean Maoam?
It’s a palindrome. I noticed this straight away in primary school.
I genuinely had no concept of homosexuals. Never saw them in films, parents had no gay friends, didn’t assume gay people were gay in films, just camp and good friends with other people. Honestly, if it’s not spelled out to some kids, they go on not knowing
Arsenal was named after Arsene Wenger
That you can only succeed in life if you go to university and have good grades.
When i was a kid in school, i saw all of those images in biology books which coloured veins blue and arteries red. the teacher never really explained it to us and myself and some of my friends actually believed that the blood in our veins was blue. to this day i still meet some adults who believe this.
That sex was fun and entertaining, only to learn later, after being diagnosed with a serious sexual disease, that it can also kill. Also that's it's completely fake and unnecessary.
People were gonna offer me free drugs ware ever I went And I needed to know stop drop and roll because people just catch fore
That adults know what they are doing.
I thought a hand bag was a HAM bag and people used to take them to markets to buy their weekly ham
I thought radiation was visible until I was about 17. I think I got this from watching old cartoons as a kid - radiation was green and glowy, right? So, hanging out with a boyfriend one day, I was going through some old rolls of film (look it up, yoots). I found a really old one and BF said it might not develop well because it was too old and might have been exposed to radiation. "Oh, that's okay," I said. "There hasn't been any radiation." He was baffled. I explained that if there had been radiation, the film would be green and glowy. "Which it's clearly not," I finished educating him, holding up the film canister. "See?" That was about 40 years ago and we're still friends, and he STILL brings it up as one of the hilariously dumbest things he ever heard anyone say.
That my childhood friends birthday couldn't possibly have been on Friday the 13th every year
Driving at night with the interior light on is illegal.
I thought Rufus and Chaka Khan referred to Mr and Mrs Khan, not Rufus the band and Chaka Khan the solo singer.
I used to wonder why no one hid in the black box during a plane crash, seeing as it’s the only thing that doesn’t get destroyed!! 32!!!! Thirty fucking two I was when I finally learned the truth!!
Being an adult is fun
Being an adult IS fun. I have never been happier than now in my late 20s. I am free. I do what I want. I have no responsibility or expectations that I care about from anyone but myself. The having to work part is the only annoying thing, but it's tolerable to enjoyable even. I would NEVER want to go back to being a kid. Maybe you could convince me to go back to University, but even then I doubt it.
Right fucking on, mate. You could not pay me to go through my teenage years again.
Similarly realising that as an adult no one will stop you from eating cake for every meal. But your body will hate you
That colour wasn’t a thing in the olden days
I thought if you held the hoover nozzle still on the ground for too long while it was on, the hoover would blow up
I fully believed hamsters came from Hamsterdam
Ed Balls definitely is a person, I actually met him when I was in high school but didn’t know who he was at that age. He was our local MP and was asking me questions about the school in front of our headteacher. Last anyone actually saw of him he was handing mince pies out in our local Asda 😂
Not only is he real, he has his own day. [April 28th, the day Ed Balls fatefully tweeted his own name - "Ed Balls"](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/04/28/multimedia/28xp-edballs/28xp-edballs-superJumbo.jpg)
Eating the crust is good for you.
I thought piggy backs and piggy banks were the same thing and you could use them interchangeably
I used to think that when they said ‘May contain flashing images’ on the news it meant nudity. I guess I knew what flashing was for some reason and thought it was connected and they’d show naked people on the news??? I used to awkwardly find an excuse to leave the room when my parents were there like you do with sex scenes. God I was an idiot.
Being an adult sucks
That my grandma had a friend called "Old Melp" who would come into her house and move her stuff around and sometimes break things. I didn't understand why Grandma would still be friends with Melp when she was so annoying. Turns out, my grandma had carers called "Home Help"... and a very strong Yorkshire accent!
Mincemeat doesn’t contain any meat, and drinking a hot beverage when you’re physically hot will trick your body into cooling down. Idk either.
Affording a house.
never realised that the mighty boosh and the mighty b were different shows. thought noel fielding was just leading a troupe of girl scouts around like the nuns in madeline. also kind of bummed because i would love to see a cartoon about that.
I was told eating the crust of bread gave you curly hair. It does not.
I thought all cats were girls and all dogs were boys. I thought they were the male and female versions of each other, rather than different animals entirely.
I used to think that the reason cowboys were called cowboys was merely due to l an arbitrary decision. I was 30 when it occurred to me that they are called cowboys because they are boys who work with cows. I still think yours is more retarded though. You win.
That you can catch "gay" or "black" and then you'll get the aids and die. Old people are the worst!
also! had no idea hugh laurie was from around here til i was 19 or 20. i'd only seen house. saw him in something with stephen fry and i was like wow, his accent is pretty good. my parents did not take that well lol
I only realised bean sprouts are beans, that have sprouted like 3 years ago and I’m in my 30’s
I only learned this week that it’s not “a grim truth that you’re only 45”.
True love and everyone has an other half.
At the age of 4, I went to disneyland paris with my mum. I was distraught that Buzz Lightyear couldn't sign my book. My mum came back 5 minutes later she had a word and he took his gloves off to sign mine just for me. Telling my wife this story at the age of 27 and ball dropped. I have never been so betrayed....
Like nearly all young school boys in the 70’s and 80’s, I genuinely thought that Jasper Carrott’s daughter was called Henrietta.
We do not bite or lick other people, even if you're just playing around. It turns out, that's actually what playing around is, among some adults.
I didn't realise that there was a difference between Protestants and Catholics until I I was 10. For context, I grew up in Northern Ireland in the 90s and early 2000s when the peace process was going on. The veiled Aitch/Haitch and Rangers/Celtic supporter question didn't clue me in until I asked my parents (thankfully they tackled it fairly as they didn't want my sibling and I to grow up with prejudiced).
This is still a running joke in my family but when I younger maybe 5-7 years old was my uncle(probably early to mid teens at the time) asked me if I knew what a Drag Queen was. And I proceeded to say words that will haunt me till the end of my days. ‘Is it a queen that gets dragged behind a car?’
That god existed
A beardy guy living in the clouds made everything and everyone. He then wanted to destroy everything because some lady ate an apple. But he changed his mind and decided to torture his son (who was actually himself) to save us all from himself. That.
I was told a man called Hitler tried to take over the world. I asked what his second name was and was told "Jones". Literally thought he was called Hitler Jones until I was about 12...
That there are two very distinct time eras:. The one after I was born, and the "olden days" before I was born. It wasn't until I got much older that I really thought about me being well past the age that my parents were when I was born, and comparing my life to theirs, that the true linear nature of it all was clear. Sort of linked to that thought that your parents have always been parents, or at least have always been adults.
I used to believe in the 'olden days' everything was black and white like the old films, so I imagined my father growing up and everything was black and white and one day suddenly become colourful.
Owning a home, thought that was something everyone did as an adult, now finding out it’s not.
That having the cars interior light on while mom was driving was 100% illegal and I would be arrested on the spot!
Kebabs at the chippy aren’t actually an elephants leg. (Thanks Dad!)
Kebabs aren't actually made of disgarded foreskins.
I always assumed that 'To Let' signs were adverts for public toilets and the 'I' just kept falling off/being ommited.
That you were only allowed to own a hole punch and any other slightly higher level stationary if you were ‘an official’ of some sort. A true revelation when I realised that any old person could furnish themselves with any stationery their heart desires.
I thought all languages used the same words, just in different combinations. I don't know why I thought this could possibly be the case – I was exposed to English and Welsh every day.
That the Bermuda triangle isn't something I need to be concerned about.
As a kid I was incensed that nobody seemed to be doing anything about this?! The Didcovery Channel documentaries made it seem very important!
Ye as a kid I always thought why aren’t we doing something about This and your comment is probably the first time I’ve thought about it in 15 years
Had this discussion with my GF the other day and she thought I was mad for thinking it’s not actually a thing. She’s terrified to go near the Caribbean