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 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 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

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

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

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

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

number went ... nineteen, ten-teen, eleven-teen, twelve-teen.
twelve-teen was the largest number possible.

zzz man

When I was about 4 I used to believe the very last number that you could count to was called 'tendy' (pronounced ten-dee), so whenever I got tired of counting I would just say 'tendy' and be finished.

Rachel

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

Until I was four or five, I always thought that since 1+1=2, 2+2 must equal 3. I insisted I was right until I finally learned to add properly and had a lot of arguments with my dad about this, who tried to explain it without laughing. I now am in 7th grade honors math!!!

Anon

When I was in kindergarten one day we were learning about numbers and we were counting. It seemed like forever that we were counting outloud so I asked my friend "when do numbers stop?". She told me that "they never end!". And I couldn't understand that at all so I thought she was just nuts and was that obsessed with numbers!

Shannon

I used to believe that while 'a couple' meant two, that 'a few' meant three. I thought this at least until I was 8 years old.

Even more embarassingly it was my younger brother who clued me into the fact that 'a few' didn't have to be just three. I argued with him that it even made sense since the word 'few' had three letters in it. Of course, I hadn't considered that 'couple' had more than two letters.

At any rate, my mother settled the argument.

Glen

When we learned how to spell out numbers, I had the weirdest problem where I thought they were spelled like '6ix' or '5ive' or '9ine' or '7even' etc. I couldn't see the error at all. I still think they look good that way.

Megan Craig

I used to believe numbers and letters had genders. They were all family too.

1 was a boy.
2 was a girl.
3 was a boy.
4 was a girl.
5 was a mean ugly girl that looked like a boy.
6 was a girl.
7 was a tomboy. Lol.
8 was a boy.
9 was a boy.
10 was the smart and strong boy.
11 was the smart and strong girl.
12 was a geeky boy.
13 and 14 were twins. They were very pretty girls.
15 was a sporty jock guy.
16 was the kool kid.
17 was the acoholic.
18 was the smartest.

Go figure.

I still see them as that...

hehe.

13

i could swear eleventeen was a number for the longest time -- it still sounds pretty convincing.

erin

I can remember when I was little, I figured out how to count up to very large numbers for the first time. I was in the yard, and I counted outloud... I counted to fif-dee, then six-dee, then seven-dee, then eight-dee and finally nine-de,e and I kept going... nine-dee seven, nine-dee eight, nine-dee nine and finally --- TEN-dee! Ten-dee one, ten-dee two... until I got to ELEVEN-dee, then TWELVE-dee.

I was so proud, that after I got it down I did it in front of my mother, who then kindly corrected me, and explained that after nine-dee nine came one hundred.

I don't know how old I was, but the memory is as clear as a bell.

Wayne