Soon after starting school 3 years ago, my friend's little girl came home upset because she couldn't read as well as some of the kids in her class, even though her counting was really good.

My friend comforted her by comparing her to me - saying "Auntie C can read and write, but she can't count to 100 like you can"

Her reading is much better now, but she still believes that I can't count without using my fingers and toes...

Anon

I always thought that the numbr 100 was the biggest number and that it was the last one. So, when I knew all my numbers up to 100, and then was informed that I was sadly mistaken, I thought I will never memorize all those numbers. It would take years.

Anon

I can't believe how many other people used to associate personalities with numbers! I thought I was the only one!

When I was little I had colourful fridge magnets in the shape of the numbers. I made up all these stories about them.
1 was red. He was a baddie, though not as bad as 9.
6 was pink and 7 was purple. They were married, or girlfriend and boyfriend or something, and 9 was always trying to kill them for some reason. 1 didn't want to kill them but he didn't like them.
8 was a friend of 7 & 6. He would always be helpful, though without actually doing anything.
I also had magnets in the shapes of plus and minus signs etc. The long division sign was always a cliff that 1 or 9 would push 7 and 6 off.

I also always liked even numbers better than odd numbers, because with even numbers everybody has a friend and with odd numbers someone's always left out.
Also 8 is a better number than 6 because, although they are both even, if you halve 6 you get an odd number and if you halve 8 you get an even number.

Anon

i guess im not the only one who made personalities for numbers, here i thought i had a problem or something. I always thought 9 was mean, because when you add 5 and 9 you get 14 instead of 15....yeah...and i always thought that the adding was a way of numbers helping other numbers, and subtracting was like numbers fighting( 6 says to nine "i dont like you, were not 15 anymore!!") i was so messed when multiplying and dividing came along.

14

I used to believe that numbers had personalities.
1- msart guy who was married to 2
2- nice woman married to 1 who was secreytly in love with8, who was a bad number
3-retarded boy
4-nerdy guy
5-evil but stupid and in love with number six
6- sorta evil but very beautiful
7- evil, in love with six, was very handsome and thats why six liked him
8- clumsy but evil and in love with 2
9- servant of the wise and good 10, but secretly plotting to overthrow him.
10-nice and wise, the best of them all and the most powerful

nicole

I thought to count to one thousand you did 1-100, then 100-199, then came 1,000.

Anon!

i used to think 20 was the highest number. i would make my mom count to twenty since i actually couldnt, and then say "and thats the highest number!" my parents soon corrected me.

q

when i was little i used to believe that the number six was the same as nine, cuz if you turned 6 upsidedown you would get 9, and vice versa. so whenever i would count to ten i would either go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8.... etc
or 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 !

internet freak

I used to believe that twenty was the largest number in the universe.

Bernardo Fernandez

I used to believe numbers only lasted to 100. And, I thought, when I was three, the alphabet lasted forever like numbers.

unknown name

I used to believe that eg 1+1=11 and 2+2=22.
Luckily that only lasted until age 2 1/2.

Madi

My uncle is an Eskimo. While here in the lower 48, he was asked to recite the numbers in "eskimo". Since he was put in the white schools and was punished for speaking his native language, he never retained the language. So someone out there believed him when he started counting.... one-uk, two-uk, three-uk.......

Katie

I used to believe that if you counted up to any number above thirty or forty, it could be 100 at any given time. Like: "38... 39... 40... 41... ONE HUNDRED HERE I COME!!!"

Dallin

That 1/4 was bigger than 1/2

Anon

i uase to write my #s like 3d 3d1 3d2 5d4 etc!

anm

when my little cousin was 4, she was able to count until 9 in english. She said "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eightnine..." she thought eightnine was a whole number.

ireberry

When I was really little, about four or five, I used to think that once you got to 100, the next hundred was only ten away. Like, "100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 200" and so on. Finally I counted this way in front of my parents, who made sure to correct my counting skills.

Pol

i used to think eleven was actually 'eleventeen' ... i always wondered why they skipped 'teen' at the end of twelve

Anon

The highest of all numbers was "a finnety."

Becky

Me? I used to NOT beleive.

On my mother's forty-fourth birthday, when I was four, we did the thing where you shout, "ARE YOU ONE! ARE YOU TWO! ARE YOU THREE! . . ." All the way up to forty-four. And that was how I learned to count to forty-four.

Later, when I was counting to four on my own . . . I asked my older sister what number came next. She told me that the same pattern as with the previous numbers continued, and that forty-five came next. It made sense, I'll admit. It was a logical reply. But I didn't trust her, because she was always playing tricks on me.

So for a very long period of time, I refused to beleive that forty-five DID NOT come after forty-four, and anyone who told me otherwise was just trying to trick me.

Kama