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

After my first day at kindergarden I told my Mother that I was not going back anymore. When asked why I told her that the teacher wanted me to make number one and number two on the paper and that was nasty. I am 75 and still hear about that from family members.

Gerry

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

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

haha counting... when i was little- before i really knew how to count- this is how i would add or subtract:
24-4=2
50-0=5
31-3=1
get it? i'd just take that number away... haha so stupid!

Emily

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

I used to think that "a couple" meant any small amount, such as 3 or 5. My mom once corrected me and said that "a couple" always meant 2, and that if I meant some other small number that I should say "a few" instead.

I told her that she must have it backwards, and that "a few" must mean 2, because "few" and "two" rhyme.

Joe Martinez

I used to believe that numbers all had personalities
1 was the King of the numbers
2 was his wife
3 and 4 were the little kids
5 and 6 were older kids
7, 8 and 9 were older meaner numbers. I lways crack up with that joke why is 6 afraid of 7?
Because 7,8,9 (seven ate nine) I can relate, all the numbers had personalities!

Margie

I used to believe that it would take forever to count to 100

Jeff

when my 3rd grade teacher taught us about geometry she gave us little tips for remembering which one was which.


Obtuse and open


acute is "a cute" and little angle



when i associated anything with cute those days it was bunnies.

i do not know why.


well when u make an angle you know you have to make a square(for a right angle) or a curved line(for acut and obtuse angles), i always tried to find the little bunnies and neon open signs inside of the angles on tests.

Anon

when i was little (about 5) i could count fine up to 25 but then i would count 26, 27 , 28 ,29, saturday, saturday1, saturday2....
i have no idea why but my parents still joke about it. ive actually turned out gud at maths(im 13 now)

k8

i used to belive that 1 to 10 were the only numbers and all others were made up.....

Eric

i used to believe that in math two numbers added together they would equalthose two numbers together ex. 6+3=63

interesting beliefs

Numbers went up to 100 then restarted at zero.

Anon

When I was about 4 I decided that if you were born in a bigger year, that meant you were older. So if I was born in 1965, that meant I was older than someone born in 1964. Because 65 is bigger than 64. Just like being 4 years old was bigger than being 3 years old.

jen

When I was learning to count, I always left out 7. Then, when I finally got used to it being between 6 & 8, I started to leave out 17... I always believed that it couldn't be a proper number because it always had one more syllable than those around it.

Uncle Korky