Things you were shockingly old when you learned

Presumably until the US grabbed the massive amount of the West that was Mexico as shown in the last but one Adam Ruins Everything, that territory would have been thought to have been a distant part of Spain. I don't think it had gained Independence before that.

& don't they speak Latin in Latin America?

Mexico became independent 25 years before the Mexican-American war.

Yeah just saw that. Hadn't thought it was independent that early. But 300 years as a Spanish colony is probably enough.

Which surpasses others by standing 'head and shoulders' above them.

Well this part I just caught.

Blimey, Heathrow Airport is massive isn't it? Just looked at the thing on Google Earth and it's just... enormous?!

here is a treat for you:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/30479/10-largest-airports-world-seen-above

Seems about normal-sized for an airport.

http://i.imgur.com/WalAFzY.png

http://i.imgur.com/Xai7gU6.png

http://i.imgur.com/UvIQI4t.png

Bigger than my airport though.

http://i.imgur.com/V434GV5.png

If that Mountbatten joke from the other day wasn't as well known as it once was.
It went
How did they know that Lord Mountbatten had dandruff?
Because they found his head and shoulders on the beach.

I think it was pretty widely known at one point. Not sure if it's commuted to any other explosives victim since then. Has it?

i first heard it re challenger explosion

horrible 80s jokes I have heard

need another seven astronauts

That snowshoes don't actually look like tennis rackets - it's just a visual shorthand used in cartoons and as a joke in 70s UK sitcoms.

?

The "teardrop" snowshoes worn by lumberjacks are about 40 inches (1.0 m) long and broad in proportion, while the tracker's shoe is over 5 feet (1.5 m) long and very narrow. This form, the stereotypical snowshoe, resembles a tennis racquet, and indeed the French term is raquette de neige.

http://www.planet-science.com/media/24073/woman%20wearing%20old%20fashioned%20snowshoes_100391027_363x242.jpg

democracy doesn't work

snowshoeing rules

I was well into adulthood when I realized that there was no such thing as unprepared ham. I thought ham and pork were two different cuts of pig meat, and while it seemed odd to me that I only ever saw the cured/smoked stuff in supermarkets, I figured you could buy raw cuts of ham at the butcher shop if you were so inclined.

I know this is a year too late but:

Also in my late teens I learned that when people were playing soccer and shouted "Aussie rules" that they weren't saying "Ozzy rules!"

Erm? who does this, what? You know Aussie Rules isnt soccer, right?

Well kids did it all the time when playing soccer.

Another one, but I wasn't shockingly old but it carried on much longer than made sense: I used to assume that Robin Williams sung in "Once In A Lifetime" by Talking Heads.

What do you think they did mean, if not "Ozzy rules!"?

Australian rules

Kids at my school shouted 'Aussie rules' too. I think it was just a hokey way of saying that hard tackles were allowed.

It was a joke, like if someone handballed or picked up the ball in the playground, they'd shout Aussie rules

the bad guys usually win

weird that this was a nationwide phenomenon but we also did the aussie rules shout for violence/picking up the ball. and if somehow we ended up using rugby posts as goals, kicking over the bar counting double was also aussie rules.

are canadians as confused about the classic schoolkid phrase "uh I have a girlfriend, she's in canada"

I could have swore I heard kids saying it before a game to establish that more stuff is allowed.

yeah, I mean that it's a nonsense phrase that's a thing in the UK but not in Australia

Girlfriend in Canada isn't a nonsense phrase though, it has a clear context

"My girlfriend lives in Canada!"

*picks up soccer ball, throws laterally*

assuming australians are ruffians who tackle-each other inappropriately seems based in a cultural context

Kinda based on having seen Australian Rules Football tbh.

otm

let alone the fucking international compromise rules

an irishman who isn't fond of compromise eh?

to me, aussie rules = dudes in white coats doing that pointing thing

xp its u and tom d that know how to hurt us most ime

That "scallops" in chip shops are not made of seafood.

I used to eat them when I was a kid but didn't really know what was in them, never had a seafood scallop until I was much older and my wife introduced me to them, asked me if I'd had them before I said yeah, battered from the chippy, they used to be really cheap, like 12p each, so I used to get them for snacks. She was confused by the cheapness because scallops are usually expensive. Not the same thing! I just found this out now. I'm 40.

I've never heard or seen scallops in a chip shop? What are those?

Battered potato. Maybe they don't have them down south which would explain why I haven't eaten one in 20 years.

"Potato scallops originate from central England and are common in fish and chip shops there."

There you go then. I also originate from central England.

They have scallops in my (Scottish) chip shop that are definitely scallops (the expensive kind).

(potato) scallops have different names regionally so ppl might have encountered them in a different guise. at home in cov a scallop batch was a personal favourite. when i was in lancashire the same thing was called a dab teacake.

Getcher fried challops here!

Though it sounds like a bit like rarebit/rabbit and truffles, where there's two or more levels of meaning that have conflated. This cheese thing is a Welsh rarebit, which someone turns into a bad ethnic joke about the Welsh being so poor they'll eat cheese and call it rabbit, so you start hearing "welsh rabbit."

Ditto someone comes up with the bad folk etymology that "asparagus" once was "sparrowgrass," except that in Greek "asparagos" means "vegetable shoot," etc. Somebody makes a chocolate candy shaped a bit like a truffle, calls it a "chocolate truffle," then after a while the modifier "chocolate" wears off and hey presto you have two totally different things both called truffles.

Somebody in a chip shop makes a scallop-sized or scallop-shaped fried potato, calls it a potato scallop, which gets shortened to scallop, then someone turns round and says ha ha, lolz English, trying to pass off a common potato as if it were fine seafood, etc.

I am also from central England and was incredibly confused about scallops until I was in my late 20s. I mean, I figured out that most people meant the seafood and the other thing was regional but I didn't know what the other thing actually *was*.

Never heard of potato scallops. Don't think our chippies had anything like those. I would eat them.

I think of scalloped potatoes as a casserole dish. I knew of that for many years before I learned about the seafood.

(although way the hell before age 40)

xposts! Scalloped potatoes are a thing in the US and I never understood the nomenclature, not sure what relation (if any) there is to UK potato scallops:

Gratin (French pronunciation: ​[ɡʁatɛ̃]) is a widespread culinary technique in which an ingredient is topped with a browned crust, often using breadcrumbs, grated cheese, egg and/or butter.[1][2][3] Gratin originated in French cuisine and is usually prepared in a shallow dish of some kind. A gratin is baked or cooked under an overhead grill or broiler to form a golden crust on top and is traditionally served in its baking dish.

...

Potatoes gratiné is one of the most common of gratins and is known by various names including "gratin potatoes" and "Gratin de pommes de terre". Slices of boiled potato are put in a buttered fireproof dish, sprinkled with cheese and browned in the oven or under the grill.[8] In North America, the dish is referred to variously as scalloped potatoes, potatoes au gratin, or au gratin potatoes. (Note that the term scalloped originally referred to a style of seafood dish rather than to one specifically based on the scallop.)[9] In French-speaking Canada, the dish is referred to as patates au gratin. Australians and New Zealanders refer to it as scalloped potatoes or potato bake.

Challops.

What are *they* made of, you midlands people?