Not quite recently, but after skating through high school and most of college I learned that if you read through your notes before a test you remember more things. I also learned that this is referred to as "studying".
I spent 30+ years thinking that a pony was a baby horse rather than a smaller type of horse. You know how cats have kittens and dogs have puppies? Well I thought horses had ponies.
Even all the times that Lisa Simpson wanted a pony, I just thought it was similar to how a kid might want a puppy.
I knew about this on some level before, but the recent posts have given me a better understanding on how in some countries people need expensive third party software to pay their taxes.
That when cooking anything with leftover grease you should always dispose of the excess grease in an empty container and trash it instead of putting it down a drain.
Also that it's best for your pipes to put your used toilet paper in a trash can instead of flushing it.
Maybe this more of a misheard lyrics thing, but for a long time I thought "noxious gas" had to do with nitrogen oxides (NOx), and then spread to other metaphorical applications like "noxious weeds" and so on.