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 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

Before I entered kindergarten, I used to believe that 11 and 12 should have been eleven-teen and twelve-teen.

Why not? There's thirteen, fourteen and so on...
I figured the entire group should match. :-)

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 remember the first time I stayed up on New Years Eve was in 1983. When the clock struck twelve, I told my parents: 'now it's 2084', and was so proud about understanding the calendar system.

Martin

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

Whne I was in third grade, I didn't believe in zero. I thought it was ridiculous that there was a number representing *nothing*. So I did my math probmes without the zero. Needless to say, they weren't scored so well.

JD

I used to (and still sort of do) always assume some numbers were more *special* than others. namely 5, 2, and 50.

i also remember multiplication in strange ways, rather than just memorizing or counting each time) because i think of the relationship two numbers have with each other, such as : 6 and 7 are unusual numbers, so multiplying them together creates a regular numbe:42

Weirdo

A few years ago my teacher said that his daughter thought that 20, 21, 22 etc. were pronounced "two-ty, two-ty one, two-ty two" and so on.

Anon

I used to believe that a hundred and one hundred were different numbers. When I was fascinated with counting that high, I always did a hundred first, then continued to count to one hundred.

Velma

My friend asked me if I wanted to go to cotillion with her. I had never heard of cotillion. I thought it was a very large number. million, billion, trillion. . .cotillion.

Vicki J.

As a child I always thought somehow that the gap between seven and eight was somehow bigger than the gap between other consecutive pairs of integers. Even when I learned arithmetic and knew that 6+1=7, that 7+1=8, and 8+1=9, knowing that the one in each case is the same "one", It still seemed in spite of that the gab between seven and eight was in SOME sense bigger than other gaps between consecutive integers. Kind of contradictory, I know. But I still probably think of seven as the largest small integer and eight as the smallest large integer, the gap SEEMING extra big.

Joanne

I used to think that certain quantitative words had numbers assigned to them. If 'a couple' was two, 'a few' was three and 'a lot' was four. Naturally, 'several' was seven. I still adhere loosely to this hierarchy of counting.

queeneve

When I was six years old, a relative from Czechoslovakia visited Florida, and was staying at my grandmother's house. When I met him, I was playing with my Super Speak & Math, and pushed in 4, the answer to my problem. Jokingly, he said "Oops! You pressed 2!" and I felt sorry for him. He seemed to speak English well, but he didn't yet know the American number system.

Vince

i thought that 1+1 actually was both 11, and 2.

hip hip

I remember in gr.1 learning to make the number 8 as 2 circles. Then in gr.2, my new teacher said to make it like a figure 8.
For the longest time I thought my 2 teachers would get in a fight about which way to make an 8.

Anon