i used to believe that 6 and 7 were girlfriend and boyfriend and that 8 loved 6 a lot and so was jealous of 7 and 7 always protected 6 from 8 coz he knew.

nainie

i used to believe that the number 4 was female, 5 was male and 6 was female.
4 and 6 would fight over 5 because they were so jealous of each other for being right next to him

msvedder

It always confused me when my mom would ask someone what "percent" certain they were, and they would answer 80% or 90%. I thought, if you're certain, you're certain, and these people all must have an agreed upon number that would mean they are certain. Finally, my mom asked me the question one day, and I asked her "out of what number?" I thought it was a perfectly intelligent question (since the number could be anything) and she said 100. So I was 100% certain. What bothered me though, was that I would still hear other people quote other percents, yet my mom always told me the number was 100. It took me a while to realize you didn't always have to be 100% certain!

CB

i used to secretly think that numbers were rally letters dressed up to disguise themselves

Hunkofjunk

When I was little, I was confused with the decimal system. It's easier to show as an example how I counted: "..., twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-ten, twenty-eleven, twenty-twelve", and so on. When the count reached "twenty-nineteen", the next number (twenty-twenty) just didn't seem to make sense. It took me over a year to realize that the number after 29 is 30.

Anon

I used to believe (at 3 or 4) that counting money was very difficult and confusing. I was so very worried that I would grow up to be a cashier. Counting back all that change made my head spin just thinking about it. I still get confused when to give the cashier one penny to round out the total.

Jennifer

this isn't a belief, really - just the way it has always been for me ......when I visualize numbers, they are 3-dimensional and have specific colors: 5; is red; 6 is blue; 3 is yellow; 4 is brown; 2 is gray; 8 is pink; 9 is very pale gray and 1 and 10 are white; 11 is also a light gray...............after that color doesn't bear any relation to numbers for me.

katy

Like Lena, katy, Bewildered (and somewhat like Ericka) I too have always associated digits with colors. 0=white, 1=gray, 2=red, 3=green, 4=yellow, 5=brown, 6=maroon, 7=silver, 8=blue, 9=orange. Letters of the alphabet, too. I recently read about the brain condition synesthesia, in which senses are mixed, and wonder if this is related.

Walter

when i was in kindergarten i used to think that 100 was the highest someone could count!

Jessica

I used to believe that odd numbers were male and even number were female. So in my head they were all dating. 1 was dating 2. 3 was engaged to 4. 5 was married to 6. And 6 was cheating on 5 with 7. ( I don't know what happened to 8,9,0... )

nbchelen

When I was younger, I used to believe that you couldn't count backwards unless you said "Zero, Blast Off!" at the end.

3, 2, 1, 0, Blast Off!

I used to believe that all the numbers up to 20 had different personalities, like 5 had 4 children (1,2,3,4) and she was married to six who was always getting attacked by 7. This is how I remembered my math problems.

Jonelly

I also believed that numbers had personalities. 6 and 8 were best friends, and they worked on this special project (14) together. 9 was mean, tricking other numbers into giving up their rightful places in the teens. 8 and 9 were sometimes friends, but 8 like 9 more than 9 liked 8.

cool cat

Before I started kindergarten, I used to beleive that there were only 12 numbers, 1-12. I thought this because at the moment, my fave number was 12 :P lol. (I was also under the impression, "Save the best for last", so 12 was the last number). dont get me wrong, I was pretty smart, i knew all of my ABC's! (but i knew there were 26 letters of the alphabet...) my know-it-all cousin who was the same age as me, finally set me straight and told me that numbers went on forever! man, i was soo disapointed! :'(

Charlotte (age 14 =] )

When I was little I used to think that when you counted the numbers went 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10---- then 11-19 was replaced with one-ty like twenty or thirty. It went ten, onety-one, onety-two, onety-three... and so on!

Kratz

i dont remember what 1-19 were, but 20-29 were yellow, 30-39 were green, 40-49 were blue, 50-59 were red/pink, 60-69 were lighter green, 70-79 were orange, 80-89 were darker yellow, and 90-99 were dark red, or something like that

ben

[i went to a french school, btw]
When I was in 1st and 2nd grades, I was convinced that however you said the numbers, was how they should be written, as in, the number twenty-two, should be written 202 [20-2]
if you wanted to write 22, you should say two-two.

I was adament that this is how it was, and would throw crying fits when my teacher tried to tell me otherwise.

Clementine

I come from Norway. When I was a child I believed that twenty and seventy was the same number, they sounded alike to me, in norwegian. So when I was told to count to a hundred I counted ...28,29,80,81...

Kim

Zero and Zorro were easily confused words.
Of course you can't divide by Zorro! It's not a number!!!!!!

Anon

I once counted to ninety-ten. I think it was a moment of absentmindedness, which are cmmon with me, but you can never be sure...

Hilary