Words that you didn't realise weren't made up...

I just thought SMEG was the make of my fridge...

This isn't quite the same thing but the boycott thread has reminded me that it was only a few years ago that I found out that the suffragettes weren't called that because they "suffered".

I was thinking just the other day I should start a stupidity amnesty thread - ie, admitting things you didn't know that are supposedly common knowledge. Like, when I was a kid my uncle told me that mouth ulcers were called 'chatterbox spots' and were caused by talking too much. I believed that for quite a while...

Stealth boast.

I use 'interfrastically' quite a lot. Being quite old I thought everyone knew it was a joke and lifted from Blackadder. apparently not...everyone just thought/thinks I'm using big words to bamboozle them. :-D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOSYiT2iG08

That's just like when I use ' embiggen' or ' cromulent' (both from the Simpsons).

I'm not stealth boasting I genuinely thought that as I had never heard the word smeg. Plus why would I boast about a fridge they all do the same thing.

I think it might just have been a joke.

? I didn't?

I'm glad someone has a sense of humour round here!

Stealth boast- smeg fridges are expensive, hence why you may boast about them as opposed to a hotpoint one.

It was a joke- however once explained that is kind of lost.

Ooops my bad sorry, between night feeds, teething and a husband on 3am wake ups my sense of humour has gone into a coma.

All words are made up in a sense though. Smeg is in the dictionary now, but is probably a relatively recent addition (I can't find a date for it). So you shouldn't feel too bad about this stuff. For example, you know what selfie means and that was only added to the dictionary last year.

Yes I am aware of all words being made up but thought 'smeg' was a nonsensical insult word, as I had belived mong and spaz to be rather than it actually having another meaning. I had believed smeg was a made up insult word derviced from Red Dwarf circa 1980's as opposed to being derived from a medical term that I have traced back to at least 1947.

I'd be boasting if I had a Smeg fridge. I've wanted one forever but could never afford one. :-(

Okay, I see what you mean now. 1947! Who knew it was that old. I love language history. Bill Bryson's books on words are endlessly fascinating to me. I'm almost as much a language geek as I am a music and radio geek.

Not quite the same thing but I was quite old (around 19 or so ?) when I realised "chinky" is actually quite an offensive word and not just an offhand way of saying Chinese. My mum (who is part-Chinese herself) and her family always just used it like a normal word, talking about which of us kids had inherited chinky eyes etc!! I was mortified as I'd just been saying it like it was nothing too ☹️

OMG? Me too but I thought it was like saying going to the fish and chip shop, chippy, going to the chinese takeaway was the chinky. I was at a session on race relations and the instructor explained it to me. I had never associated it with *** and that it was an insult. He was exapesarated at my naivety/stupidity. I was mid-twenties? I grew up in a multi-cultural area and came across children of various ethnicities and as far as I knew nobody insulted anyone based on their looks/race etc but maybe they did all the time and I just never understood☹️

When my cousin and her boyfriend came over here on a gap year from Australia, they were openly using the N word (I'm sure it would be censored if I were to type it!) and 'Paki'. My mum had to quietly explain to them that if they were heard in public saying that about someone, they could get in trouble for inciting racial hatred. They genuinely thought those words were fine to use and not problematic. Very strange.

Teenage speak that keeps being added to the dictionary - like peng. #notaword #cantkeepup

Hang on... I though smegma was the posh word for kn0b-cheese?!

Like yolo? A woman at work used it and I asked her if it was because she didnt know what carpe diem meant...

It is - there's even a lovely picture on Wikipedia!

Good reply!!! I have a teenage step-daughter - YOLO has now been banned in our house cos my ears may start bleeding if she says it one more time!! especially when used as a smart ass reply to being asked why she hasn't done something!!! lol

x

It's both. I'm a saddo that has to Google everthing!

Yeah, I recently read that Neighbours have just cast their first ever indigenious actor in a main role, and they've been making it since the 80s! Bizarre.

The whole smegma thing has made me laugh a lot!! I can't think off the top of my head any words I didn't realise were/weren't made up but when we were younger 'retard' was a perfectly acceptable insult between my brothers and me, we did however know it was inappropriate to describe people with special needs this way so found it hilarious when my nan said "You shouldn't call people that because my friend's niece is actually retarded"