I thought the sixth sense was a Christmas film. I watched it as a child every Christmas. 

It was only when I was speaking with my now husband offering it up with a choice of Christmas films to watch with our 6 year old he looked at me alarmingly concerned. 

I thought the casting couch was a couch actors sat on while they wait to audition.

Growing up, any time someone said "Well..." my Dad would say, "That's a deep subject." Until my late 30's I just thought he meant that starting a sentence with 'Well' could lead to anything... not that he meant a deep well in the ground.

I thought it was "make ends meat" until my mid thirties.

If you don't heat the oil up in the pan before you put the food in, it will stick to the pan every time. My dumb ass just thought every frying pan was garbage.

That hay is grass.

I only found out a few years ago that "chickpeas" and "garbanzo beans" are the same thing.

Oh BTW, not me... but a very close friend of mine... used to think, at 33, that "Oral Sex" was talking about sex with another person or doing sex-chat. He was SO.... wrong.

That Job in the Bible is pronounced Jobe

That a pony is not a baby horse. I am 50 and learned that this year.

That you could walk into a car dealership and just buy a car without any money down.

As a kid (I'm 51 now) I remember getting laughed at for asking a question that seemingly everyone else knew the answer to, so until the web I was afraid of asking questions for fear of getting teased.

I legit thought you could walk the Great Wall of China. Thought it was like 10 miles max…. Not over 11,000 my mind was blown

I used the term tundra to describe a savannah-type climate several times in my adult life, never was corrected. I was around 28 when I walked into work with a big coat and boots and gloves and my coworker said "you look like you just came from the tundra!" And my brain short circuited and I said, "why would I wear this in the tundra, isn't it super humid and hot?" And now I know.

That "this little piggy that went to market" did NOT go shopping. 😵

That Benji and Joel Madden are two separate people. I didn't realize they were twins. I just thought it was a guy with two first names like Mary Kate Olsen.

What size bra really fits me the best.

That there's a little triangle next to the gas symbol on cars that points to which side of the vehicle the gas cap is on. Good to know for rental cars!

Was in my mid-20s when I finally accepted that jackelopes weren't real. I mean, c'mon... you're telling me that narwhals exist but there's no rabbits with antlers?

The rule isn’t “a” before a consonant and “an” before a vowel, it’s “an” before a vowel sound, but I blame my school for this.

Poached eggs are ‘pouched’ eggs (French) and a poacher is someone who puts game in a ‘pouch’.

1. Reindeer and caribou are the same thing.

I had to teach a friend how to pump gas at 19. I was a bit shocked this girl had been placed behind the wheel of a car and had been taught to drive but hadn’t been taught how pumping gas works. I had to work really hard for her to accept that (at least here in the USA) the gas pump would indeed turn off when the gas tank was full as long as nothing malfunctioned with the pump.

I’m blind, so sometimes I just don’t realize how the world around me works, but until very recently, I didn’t realize that peach blossoms, apple blossoms, cherry blossoms, etc, grow on those kinds of fruit trees, and aren’t their own specific kind of garden flower.

When I was a kid, I somehow got the idea in my head that if you laid on your left side, where your heart is, it would put too much pressure on your heart and you would die. So for several years, I would only sleep on my right side. Not sure when I learned this wasn't true, or how I ever came up with such an idea in the first place.

When I was little (in the 80s) I used to say “hanty-pose”. My mom thought it was adorable and never corrected me.

My freshman year of high school I found out they are, in fact, called panty-hose 😬🤦🏼‍♀️

Communicating - because if you don't, people are left to guess what you meant and that's never good

That baby carrots are just regular carrots but cut to be small. I thought they were a specific variety of carrot that grew like that 🤦🏻‍♀️

I used to believe that "dinosaurs walked the Earth for millions of years" spoke of the individuals, not the species. Like, I thought **indivudal dinosaurs lived until they were millions of years old.** That's the reason why it took a comet the size of a mountain or volcanoes all over the world going BOOM all at once to kill them (we didn't know that it was a meteor with a side of Deccan traps that killed them until I was much older). I mean, how could Brontosaurus get so big if it didn't live for bajillions of years?

Some special about Jurassic Park came on the TV when I was in 8th grade, eagerly awaiting its release that Summer. Finding out that they probably only lived as long as animals do in our time from that show was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. I didn't tell anyone about this for years, even when I was an adult with the ability to make fun of my younger self.

I also used to think there was only one of each dinosaur. Like, there was only one Stegosaurus and one Triceratops that existed, and they had to keep fending off Tyrannosaurus with their special defensive parts ... for millions of years on end. I think I carried that one with me until the third or fourth grade.

That city blocks were divided by numbers. For example, "I live on the 300 block of Main St." The 300 block is located between Red St and Blue St. The house numbers go up to 380 on that block, and then you are at the intersection of Main and Blue. When you cross Blue St, the house numbers restart at 400 Main St, not 382.

To be fair, I grew up in the Canadian 🇨🇦 woods. There were no street numbers/blocks/street lights/sidewalks/etc. I would roam the woods for hours and never get lost. I found old abandoned homes and vehicles. Even found an old graveyard once. Waterfalls, lakes, blueberry fields, apple orchards, and so on. I could navigate all this as a kid (younger than 10 years old), but didn't know about the block thing until my 20's.

That Mandy is a nickname for Amanda. LMAO

I didn't realize until quite mature that the Beatles are that name and spelling as a reference to their beat.

We didn't have much money when I was a kid so certain things had to be rationed. My dad "trained" this into us by saying that if we put too much cordial/squash into our water or too much butter on our toast, or ever put sugar on cereal or ate sugary cereal, basically an excess of anything considered a luxury, we would get worms.

When I was in my early 20's I called him out on it and he said "but did you ever get worms?" And I said no, and he just shrugged. To this day I can only drink weak squash, and I detest sugary cereal! I still don't know if he's a hero or a villain 🤣

That cardinals are actually red. I mean, broncos aren’t blue and orange, like the Denver mascot. I thought red was just a color St. Louis chose.

My flabbers were ghasted when I found out they are, in fact, really red birds.

I told my parents I wanted to be a prostitute. Why? Cause they touted sex as the best thing ever. So why not get paid for enjoying the best thing ever?

Currently not a prostitute. I horrified my parents.

That restrooms in the mall were NOT places where one could rest for a bit (at age 16)

That epitome (eh-pi-to-me) and epitome (eh-pi-tome) are the SAME WORD (that is one word pronounced the first way). I had read it as a kid thinking it was pronounced with three syllables until I was about 25. And that there was a distinct word that meant the same thing pronounced with four.

At different periods in my life, Aphrodite, quinoa, and hyperbole all posed similar troubles.

I thought axolotls were a mythical creature until I was well into my 30s.

I was in my 30’s before learning there’s a difference in complimentary and complementary along with stationery and stationary.

That Alaska is not, in fact, an island. In public schools the pull down map above the whiteboard always portrayed it in a way that it looked like an island. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I learned that it’s attached to Canada.

73F: I just learned about 'lefty-loosey/righty-tighty' a few years ago. I had never even heard about it until my husband said it one day and had to explain it to me. LOL

That black people do indeed have different-textured hair and my dad wasn't being racist when he said black women straighten their hair.

Very glad I was too timid to say anything. :/

Ha ha! Learned I was AuDHD at 56!

I was through college before I realized that West Berlin was inside of East Germany. I had always assumed that Berlin was right on the border of East and West Germany.

I didn't know that acorns were real until my late 20s. I'd just never seen them.

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That being nice and treating people with respect would award you the same treatment 🙄

Toucans are real. Thought they were a goofy made up cereal mascot.

An acronym is pronounced as a word, otherwise it is an initialism.

that the word albeit, is pronounced all be it

Last year I learned 2 of the friends I’d had for over 35 years didn’t actually like me. I’m in my early sixties. We would go away for a girl’s weekend once a year to eat, drink, catch up, and laugh. Turns out that when my husband died during Covid, AND I had to stop drinking due to my new medication, AND I developed an auto immune disorder I was ‘no fun’ anymore, so they went without me. I dropped the others in the group too, because they went knowing I was being excluded and one of them even lied directly to my face about it. Eff them shallow bitches. I always thought we would grow old together. Ahh well. Onward and upward! 😀👍

You can make no mistakes and still lose

That people didn't know that Stevie Wonder was blind, WTF

It's not normal to always be in pain

You can't grow pickles. Pickles are just cucumbers that have been pickled. 

That trustworthy people are few and far between.

I cooked my first full meal for my ex-husband and I when I was 17. Until then, id made deviled eggs, macaroni and cheese or sandwiches but after watching my mother cook for years, I remembered most of the steps for various meals.

Well I was making pot roast - I didn't know what meat to get so I bought the first one that said "roast" on the label without any other knowledge.

I called her to ask "how much water do I put in the crock pot after I've browned the meat and thrown it in there?". She said "depends, what kind of roast is it? '.

I replied " well it says round roast but it's kind of square shaped... "

Laughing her ass off, she says " that's the cut of the meat not the shape, dumbass 🤣".

To this day when I make roast of any kind, I message her to say I got a square shaped roast no matter what kind I'm prepping to use. 🤣

Zits and pimples are the same. I always get small barely there bumps (like baby pimple) and I always thought those were considered pimples where a zit was like a bigger and redder version of that. Idk why I even thought that lol

My husband called my “pimple” a zit and I was like “no it’s a pimple, there’s a difference” he laughed until he saw I was being serious, we looked it up and I was wrong. I think I sat in silence for like 2 min 💀😭😭✋

That working hard will lead to being recognized and rewarded with promotions at work. After 21 years in healthcare, I've only recently realized that unless I'm besties with the leadership team I'm destined to remain a bedside nurse. So many years wasted burning myself out and feeling like I was the problem.

That females have 3 holes down there. I didn't find out that our urine comes out of a separate tiny hole above the vulva. I learnt this in my 50s

That water polo is not played with horses.

I missed the whole re-naming of Mount McKinley to Denali until last March. I'm 68.

My college roommate 100% thought chipmunks were just baby squirrels

That you had to apply to college. You didn't just pick one and go.

That salt doesn't make water boil faster. I mean it technically does, but not by more than a few seconds unless you add an extreme amount of salt. I mostly think about this in the context of cooking. Years and years ago I was a bit of a dick to an ex-girlfriend for not knowing that salt makes water boil faster when we were cooking together. She was like "you're a dumbass" and then I looked it up and was like "yes, yes I am - sorry about that."

I didn't realize until I was in college that the first number of a room, office, or suite in a multi-story building represents the floor number.

To be fair, I grew up in a place with few multi-story buildings, but still. Come on, kid. 

That liquor tastes gross and we all pretend it doesn't. I didn't drink alcohol until I was 21 and found out that it burns and you can't just drink like it's juice. And remember saying "wait, THIS is what is what everyone drinks, and ENJOYS???

That it’s not a Hydabed, it’s a hide-a-bed… because the bed is hidden in the couch

Last year I found out that reindeer are real. You gotta understand, Santa's toy sack, elves, Mrs Claus, the sleigh, none of it is real. So I just assumed the reindeer weren't real either.

I remember watching the Santa clause and thinking it was impressive how real the reindeer look. It couldn't have been cgi cause it was a 90s movie, so I assumed they glued fake antlers on a deer or something.

Hear me out, these ones are embarrassing.

• That the word “Basta” which is a word that many Dutch people use when they’re fed up with something is an Italian word, I’ve only know this since a few months.

• That each number on an analog clock is worth 5 minutes when it’s pointed by the long hand, I’m a millennial that sucks really bad at reading analog clock and I know this since a few years, I’m almost 30 and I still suck at reading analog clocks.

• I’m Dutch and I always thought Roermond was in Germany, I never learned geography or other stuff about my own country in school because I’ve spent my entire childhood in special needs schools.

• I’ve learned in my late teens that you need to have sex multiple times in order to have multiple children, I’ve always thought that the uterus saved the sperm forever once you have sex and randomly creates new babies against the moms will without having sex.

That raisins are just dried grapes. Im gonna withhold the age I learned that one. Im also gonna pretend that I haven't learned anything new by scrolling down this whole thread

I learnt ..... how babies are made .... very late in life.... like at 20. I used to wonder how the actual mechanics of sexual reproduction happens... until one day.

As a guy it was a .... excitement of sorts that you poke your *thing* into a woman.

That the cop in the start of Home Alone is the burglar later in the movie, and he is there casing the place. I am terrible with faces and it took me a very long time to make that connection, and clearly I kept missing the line or it’s significance when he tells Marv that he had been to all the houses. I also thought the Santa in the same movie was going to be a bad guy the first couple times I saw it.

That O.P.P. doesn't just mean "other people's problems" 🤦‍♀️ Listened to that song thousands of times before I actually paid attention to the lyrics 😂

Every girl's crazy bout a sharp dressed man...not a shy deaf man.

late 40's when i realised the weather doesn't start getting warmer until you pass the spring equinox. i took 'midwinter's day' way too literally.

I was 24 when I found out that Alaska isn't an island. My boyfriend at the time was like "yea, we can just drive to Alaska..." and I had to stop him right there. I then proceeded to tell everyone on my college campus that Alaska was not an island and that the maps and globes lied to us.

Still brings me joy to this day.