Ridiculous things you believed as a child...

[D_W]

Not only as a child.... my missus (70 now) used to believe it was impossible for horses to run with all 4 feet off the ground at the same time... "its not possible, they'll fall over..." i then got her to watch some horse racing and athletes back in slow-mo. Voila... case closed

Same on the horse comment (despite movie posters and such showing stills with horses in full stride with all feet off of the ground). Horses weren't the only thing, though - we were told by some adults that the same rule applied to people. It's fairly hard as a young kid to confirm that you're continuously running with feet off the ground for a large part of the time .....why? What happens if you run and stare at your feet? At some point, you'll trip on something or run into something.

This occurred at the same time as the sport of speed walking was becoming popular. "why do they need a rule that they have to have feet on the ground? It's impossible to have both feet in the air while walking or running".

That sport died out pretty quickly here - in less than a decade (walking as fast as you possibly can while intentionally having one foot on the ground at all times to avoid disqualification - looks painful. The faster someone goes, the dumber it looks, and there was at least one time that I can recall seeing a televised speed walking event with prize money. it's almost worth finding a video - it made people look like awkward ducks and when you laughed at people at our local rec park or pointed, they got really pineappled).

 

[D_W]

I've literally never heard anyone say "pineappled" in the united states. I had too much coffee earlier today, so I'm going to "take a pineapple".

 

[Droogs]

As a child I believed I would never become a babe magnet, wow was I wrong about that one.

such a pity you all have the same polarity

 

[custard]

At school it was a known fact that if you got a paper cut in the web of skin between thumb and fore-finger, then you'd develop lock-jaw and die. This was hard science.

 

[Lonsdale73]

Whenever my mum wanted me to do something - tidy my bedroom, go to the shops; dull stuuf! - she had this expression that never failed to get me to do her bidding. It was "You do this for me and you'll not see what I'll get you." And she was always right. I was well into my twenties before the coin dropped. Something else she had me believing for years was that robins (the red-breasted bird) were only seen in the UK at Xmas. I think that must have been something she was told as a child because she was genuinely surprised to learn they're here all year round.

Re: bullets. Often puzzles me how residents of a country who passionately defend the right to bear arms, how we're led to believe they can strip down and reassemble firearms afore they can walk and have shooting practice daily can be such awful shots, even when they have the latest, most sophisticated weaponery at their disposal? Or, how they can empty an entire belt of bullets from a machine gun from near point blank range into the baddies chest but still not kill them?

 

[PerryGunn]

Oh, and "A cat will ALWAYS land on its feet"

Ah, the basic premise of the only practical perpetual motion device

Posit...
1. When a cat is dropped it always lands on its feet
2. When buttered toast is dropped it always lands butter side down

Therefore...
If a buttered slice of toast is strapped butter side up to a cat's back. When the cat is dropped, it will hover, continually spinning, a few inches off the ground

Science, innit! <sniff>

 

[TRITON]

I used to believe scone was pronounced scone until I learned it was in fact pronounced scone

There was a reference to this somewhere. I looked but it's scone.

I'll get me coat...

 

[Fidget]

Don't swallow your chewing gum. It will get wrapped around your heart and you WILL DIE!

 

[doctor Bob]

I was about 25 when I suddenly realised, that whilst doing "bob a job", as a cub scout aged 8 or 9, the bloke who answered the door with his knob hanging out probably had not done it by accident.
As a kid and from that point on, until the light bulb moment, I genuinely thought he had just forgotten to put it away.

 

[D_W]

Don't swallow your chewing gum. It will get wrapped around your heart and you WILL DIE!

Nice (it will form a ball and takes 7 years to digest and will eventually kill you by preventing pooping - that was the rumor here. This wasn't helped by the fact that teachers were the ones alternately threatening suspended recess if you were caught chewing gum and then threatening that if you had just swallowed it to get out of missing recess... "did you know that it will last seven years in your stomach and form a ball with other gum that you chew. Think about that. ..7 years!!!")

The choice between kickball and a slow agonizing death and no kickball at recess was really not an easy one to make.

 

[gwaithcoed]

As a kid I believed that souls of the dead were ascending heaven through shafts of sunlight
Alan

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The A Team!! Those were the days.

"A swan can break your arm with one swipe of its wing".

Probably true, I guess, but I know of NO-ONE EVER who's even had a slight injury from a swan. BUT maybe that is because everyone listened to the advice...

Oh, and "A cat will ALWAYS land on its feet"

I'm ashamed to say that we did conduct experiments on our particularly agile cat. In fairness, she almost always DID manage, but not ALWAYS.

In our defence, we were kids; encouraged to experiment and learn; too many to parent strictly; and the cat fail only occurred at very low level - i.e. too close to the surface to spin round onto her feet, (but not too close to stop her whipping round and scratching us for being little t'''s - What a great cat!)

You didn't try taping a piece a piece of buttered toast to its back?

 

[Bm101]

I was about 25 when I suddenly realised, that whilst doing "bob a job", as a cub scout aged 8 or 9, the bloke who answered the door with his knob hanging out probably had not done it by accident.
As a kid and from that point on, until the light bulb moment, I genuinely thought he had just forgotten to put it away.

That's nothing Bob. There was a bloke on my estate who had an cow that had Heliophobia (fear of sunlight). Because of this he had to keep it in a shed in the pitch black at the bottom of his garden. Sometimes he would pay the local kids 50p to milk it. There used to be queue all the way down the street.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Both our children were told when tots that telling a lie makes your tongue go blue. It worked for a surprisingly long time....

 

[Bm101]

The cat thing is actually beacause they are just about as big as you can get mass wise before gravity as we experience it kicks in. Obviously there's other factors involved like innate feline agility and reflexes etc but cats don't generally fall under the same gravitational restrictions of any bigger animal like dogs. Thats why cats can fall far longer distances and survive.
You can test the veracity of this theory by chucking small dogs like Jack Russels off high ledges. They will always definitely land. Just not always on their feet.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

I remember being told aged 4 by a nun that red wasn't red it was scarlet. All the evidence I needed that such ladies were not trustworthy.

 

[Bm101]

Lol Woody.
Told that my face would 'stay that way if the wind changed' I can remember hanging out my brother's window making the worst face possible to test the theory. I was so keen to test the theory I never considered what it might to be like living the rest of my life as a gurning monkey faced eedjit....wait.....

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Both our children were told when tots that telling a lie makes your tongue go blue. It worked for a surprisingly long time....

It was a pimple on the end for us.

 

[NickDReed]

When I was little I believed that being an adult would be great..... Got the council tax bill today...and the water bill...and the child maintenance left the account....pipping adulthood

Didn't type pipping.

 

[Bm101]

Nobody types *Pipping* Nick. Jeeez!
The key is to get around the swear filter by using Asterisks and so on.

Like 'F

k it!'
That way only the most switched on Mods will even notice.