After the last one, I learned about a hundred, thousand, and a million. At this time I understood that you could have a million and one, and such, but I didn't know what came after 9,999,999. Embarrasingly, I somehow got it into my head that fazonga was the next number up, then after 99,999,999 (9 fazonga, 9 million, 999 thousand, 999) would be GAZONGA, which was actually a 100 million, then a billion would be a MAZONGA.

number freak

In first grade, I distinctively remember the teacher saying 'We're going to learn about odd and even numbers... 7 is odd' some kid near me asked -to anyone listening- why 7 was odd. I answered 'of course 7 is odd, look at it.' I had the idea of odd and even numbers, but I thought the odd ones were the weird looking ones.

Meredith

I used to think that a few meant the same thing as a couple. Those two were also the same as a dozen. So my dad often got mad at me for that!

Lily

When I was 6 years old, I somehow got the concept that counting was infinite - you could always go one higher. Naturally, I concluded that EVERY WORD is a number! So cow, pencil, and airplane were numbers, I just didn't know where they went in the whole scheme of things. This still makes sense to me.

Gary

When I was very small, I couldn't deal with the fact that there were "number words" that weren't definite. I mean words like "a couple", "a few" and "several". I pestered my mother about this until she told me that "a couple" was 2. Eventually I made up a whole system where "a few" was 3, and "several" was 7. It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that people were sometimes just talking about an unspecified number!

PsyXe

I am so glad that some of you were talking about how you thought numbers had different personalities. Here I was thinking that I was the only one.

I always thought that 8 was a mean number. In order to understand, you'd have to see how I added nine to another number that was less than ten.
for example: 9+3=12
First, I'd look at the three and subtract one from it which is two. Then, I'd place a one in front of it.
So I always thought nine was so generous for only taking away one, but 8 was mean because he took away two. Somehow seven and lower didn't end up being mean.

Rachel

When I was about five or six I remember sitting in the school dinner hall boasting to my friends that I could count all the way to a thousand. Demonstrating I counted 1, 2, 3, ..., 99, 100, 101,... 108, 109, 1000. Incidentally one of the boys to whom I was boasting managed to count to 3000 without cheating when he was sixteen, one boring afternoon.

Stephen K from Scotland

When I first learned about infinity I thought it was totally the coolest idea ever. Zero was almost as cool because when you divide by zero, you get infinity. (Also zero was neither positive nor negative, but unique and totally its own thing -- how cool is that?) The wussy teachers and the math books used to say that dividing by zero was "undefined," but I thought that was some kind of a cop-out -- if you graphed it out, it obviously went to infinity. Why didn't they just say so?

And for some reason the teachers never really wanted to talk about infinity much -- they just looked uncomfortable and changed the subject. What were they hiding? I was sure there was some kind of conspiracy going on.

Ernest

I used to think that you could never count to 100 because 90 sounds so much like 19 which meant that ou would simply continue to loop from 90 back to 19 in a never ending cycle. I also convinced my friends this was true.

Benjamin

When I was young, I asked my mom, "You know how 1+1 is 2, and 3+3 is 6, and 7+7 is 14? Well, what 2 numbers make 5?" She said, "Well, 2 + 3 is 5". I said, "NO!!! I mean what two SAME numbers make 5?"

She told me that there weren't any. I couldn't accept that answer. I must have spent an hour trying to come up with the correct answer. No, I didn't know about fractions or decimals at that age.

Joe Martinez

When I started kindergarten, I believed that 100 came directly after 29. Because 29 was the highest number I could count to. I just believed that that was the highest number there was. All the other numbers weren't really numbers, just adjectives, like if you had 36 bananas, 36 was just something that described them, not the quantity.

Jamie

I used to believe that numbers had gender, that the odd numbers were boys and even numbers were girls.

Evelyn

I used to believe for a long time
that the highest number was called
unullellig.
This I also teached my brother.
Oops!

karo

i used to believe that one dozen was the same as one thousand ifound out that it was 12 when i was in 5th grade

wacko

I used to believe that to add, for example, seven and three, you'd count "seven, eight, nine". Obviously, adding one to any number didn't change it.

Eliezer Yudkowsky

My sister was always playing computer battleships when I was little. I'd learned my numbers and my letters, and I was looking at the screen one day. I soon came to believe that every number had to be partnered with a letter, otherwise it would just be rejected.

Anon

I have always had a strange feeling that even numbers are round, friendly and helpful because they are willing to be divided by two (and also because 2, 6 and 8 at least ARE roundy).

Odd numbers are mean and spiky and obnoxious because they refuse to be divided by two. (Also 1, 3, 5, and 7 ARE sort of pointy.)

Odd numbers are also bad because you can't share odd numbers of anything with a friend.

Ernest

I never really was able to believe that one pound of feathers actually weighed the same as one pound of lead...
'But dad, It's _LEAD_ ! _LEAD_ ! and feathers !'

NoSoup4U

that the word "couple" as in "a couple of items" was synonymous with "several", rather than "just two".

Blair A. Petterson

i used to believe that numbers went in the following order...

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,20,21...twenty-twelve, 30 31...Thirty-twelve...100.

Hairly Less