When my little brother's class teacher asked him to recite the two times table as a punishment for talking in class, he stood up and said:

''Duh-de-duh-de-duh, Du de du de du, de-du-de-duh-duh...''
''Stop!'' screamed his class teacher. ''WHAT was THAT?''
''I can remember the tune,'' said my little brother, ''but I can't remember the words''.

Mynaughtylittlebrother

I was convinced that there was a number called "eleventeen", but was never sure how to count to it or where it lay in the great order of numbers. I just knew it was there.

Brian Bascle

I thought "dozen" was a gigantic number, much bigger than a thousand or a million. My teacher got very confused when I told her that there must be a dozen atoms on the eraser of my pencil if there were millions on the tip.

Rachel

I used to believe that there were only 100 peple in the whole world. I remember being very confused sitting in School assembly when I was about 6 and realising that there were more than 100 people in the room.

Lesley

When I was 6 I thought my maths teacher was stupid because she wrote the plus sign the wrong way round.
It took me a while to grasp multiplication.

zooey

I used to think that any number with a decimal point in it was HUGE.

sm

I learned to count with a deck of cards. When I got to school and was asked to count, I went "Ace, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, jack, queen, king, ace."

Marie

I used to think that the multiplication table on the back of my notebook was a calendar. I used to cross off the days until I noticed that it would become a smaller date. I assumed it was another month then.

I thought one month had 144 days, but the days went by very randomly (12, 24, 36..)

Jess

I once went camping with a family of friends of the family (confusing, ain't it?) and they just so appened to have a three year old daughter. One night she woke me up and alerted me she had to use the bathroom. On the way back to our camp ground, I asked her if she could count for me (that sort of thing makes little kids proud). So she began counting. This is how she counted:

1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... 9... 10... 7... 8... 9... 10... 7... 8... 9... 10... and so on.

She continued to count like this until I don't know when. All I know is that I fell asleep before she stopped and she started to count again when my dad asked her the same question the next morning.

Marshmello Da Strawberry Cow

That the multiplication tables were made up by someone just like someone decided how to spell words. I just learnt them by heart, never understanding that 4 times 5 really makes 20.

Tintomara

i used to think that 0 and 1 were the same thing, with different names. i was sure i was right, so i kept correcting the teacher everytime she asked me what 11 minus 3 was.

anastacia beeverhousen

when i was little, concepts and inanimate objects were either nice or mean. My favorite things to classify according to mood were numbers and colors. my least favorite number was five, because it was an odd number, and it just sounded mean. I decided that five was a really mean old librarian. My favorite number was two...she was a princess. One was a nerdy tall guy in a green suit, and seven was a nosy man who liked to look over fences at what the neighbors were doing. I had issues.

rebecca

Though I knew that numbers were just numbers, negative numbers were somewhat evil to me. They messed up entire equasions by changing signs, and were just plain evil. I always liked cancelling negatives or adding larger positives to negatives to make them positive. To this day, I still enjoy getting rid of negatives.

your cat

I used to believe that the numbers had personalitys and had relationships with each other.
1-- was competing with 2 for 3's love.
2-- was competing with 1 for 3's love.
3-- was the object of affection of 1 and 2.
So to make them happy, I would make the number 132.
4-- loved 6
5-- didn't like the 4 loved 6 and tried to break them up
6-- loved four
5 was my least favorite number so he never got a pair.
7--loved 8
8--loved 7
9--lonely spinster
10-loud, fun, outgoing. 9's sister.
I did the same with colors.

Anon

When I was about 5, I never knew about the number seven.

I used to count 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10. I remember the shock when, on holiday, my parents told me about sevens.

I still think it was rather a pity; if they'd never told me, I would have been one of the only five-year olds in the UK who could count in base nine...

David Given

When I began learning about algebra, I didn't understand what was so hard about it or why there were so many problems. Once you knew that "x" was the 24th letter of the alphabet, why did you need to solve for it? It would obviously always just equal 24.
I thought that algebra just meant memorizing which letter (a-z) coordinated with which number (1-26). Don't we wish life was that simple?

Kristin

When I learned that 1 times 0 is 0... And that 2x0 is 0... and that 3x0 is 0... Naturally, I concluded that ANY number multiplied by ANY other number is 0. Genius.

The Rabbitlord

When in primary school we were taught with coloured wooden blocks marked with notches how to count, addition, subtraction etc. For example ten was always red, five green, single units were yellow. To this day I still relate colours to shapes and numbers and vice versa. Red + green = 15. I'm 34 (three yellows + four yellows) and an accountant.

Bewildered

When I was in kindergarten, I thought "blast-off!" was the same as "zero," because I saw a sketch of a rocket launching on Sesame Street. So, when we practiced counting backwards out loud in school, I'd say "blast-off!!!" instead of zero. Neither the teacher nor my mother bothered to correct me, because they thought it was cute. :)

Emily

I used to think that the abbreviation lb (for pounds) stood for Lilla-blams (like Kilograms)

Jake