when i was younger i believed that the english language was invented by a group of four or so biblical looking characters who sat around in a cave taking it in turns to invent words for things.

jim

I used to believe that it didn't matter how many horizontal lines there are in a capital "E", as long as they are evenly spaced. All my "E";s looked like combs.

Kate Joly

For years my friend John and I would hang out in back of the library under a sign "NO LOITERING".
One day, (we were 17) I threw down a candy wrapper. John said "Hey- don't break the rules. There's no loitering here".
I said "What do you think that sign means?"
"No Littering."
"Well, why do you think it is spelled that way?"
"I don't know- I thought it was a fancy way of saying "No Littering".

Tom S.

My sister (when she was in Kindergarten)used to sing the alphabet song with her class, except they'd start "Oh! A,B,C,...)and for the whole year she thought O was the first letter of the alphabet. She even argued with our mom about it!

M.B.N.

When I was five (and just learning to read) I was looking at a roll of TUMS on my mom's nightstand and read the letters backwards.

A few weeks went by and instead of just reading the letters, I could actually put the letters together. Instead of my mom's medicine being called S...M...U...T... I now knew it was called SMUT.

At the grocery store checkout stand a few weeks later, my mom was rubbing her temples while we were waiting to check out. I proudly said - so everyone could hear - "Mom, if you're feeling bad, just buy you some SMUT. It always makes you better."

Her jaw dropped, and I think she forgot about her headache.

Hi Ho

when I was little I got paparazzi and pavarotti confused, I learned the truth when Princess Diana died, because they said they were speeding to get away from the paparazzi, and I couldn't understand why a fat itallian singer would be chasing them and why they'd have to speed away from him.

Moose

When I was about 7 or 8, we had to look up lists of words for homework. One of my words was 'infiltrate' and the definition I found was 'To enter secretly with an unfriendly purpose.' Somehow I misread it as 'To enter secretly with an unfriendly porpoise' and I wondered why somebody had made a word for that, as it couldn't be that common.

unfriendly porpoise

I was with my younger sister, who was 11 at the time. Just for fun, we were reading graffiti in a public bathroom. She read the messages aloud - "I love Robert", "Jackie was here", "KB+IH forever." Then we came across one that annouced, "I love porn." I was silently hoping she wouldn't notice it, but no such luck. My sister squinted at it thoughtfully, then declared, "They must've meant 'popcorn.'". I had to struggle not to laugh, but I didn't want to give it away that whoever wrote that definitely did NOT mean popcorn.

Kathryn

I used to think L, M, N and O were one letter, elomeno. I had a very long arguememt with my teacher as she had drawn funny letters that werent in the alphabet and had neglected to teach us about elemeno. Se told my other teachers I assume because when I was a little older in other years, my teachers would say: 'This isn't another elemeno question, is it Erika?'

Elemeno Erika

when i was little i overheard my older cousin say that he had to write a letter for english. Well being 4 at the time i thought that he was inventing a letter (as in a letter of the alphabet). i couldnt wait till i was in high school and got to invent my own letter. its name was going to be anzy and look like a spiral.

M J Aaaaaaaaaaaasmith