my friend from grammer school thought that to kill a mocking bird was actually about killing a mockingbird, sadly enough i didnt really know what the book was about either, and we were in the eight grade!!!!

Anon

When I was about 9 or 10 I was very into reading the dictionary - my brother (5 years older) must have thought this was kind of geeky and asked me, very seriously, if I knew that the word 'gullible' wasn't in the dictionary - you can see what's coming next can't you?

t

From when my parents divorced was when I was able to read with some understanding. This was around the age of 6/7. My parents would send eachother Christmas cards saying Happy 'Xmas' to eachother. I thought that Xmas was a christmas word that ex boyfriends/girlfriends husbands/wives said to eachother.

Jake

There was a Chinese takeaway near us called the Orient Express. I thought it was Onion Press. Yeah.

Spook

I used to believe that the sign "in case of fire, do not use elevator" was meant to be proactive. I read it as "you shouldn't use elevators, because someday, there might be a fire." It never stopped me from using elevators, but I remember being puzzled by the sign.

Karen

When I was in third grade, and I had my cousins visiting us, and my oldest cousin, who was 12, told me that The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien would be too hard for me to read.(I was a very good reader.)My retort was that I had read Harry Potter books. I thought if you had read Harry Potter, you could read anything. Amazingly, after my cousins were gone,I read The Hobbit.

Lane

When I was seven years old, I used to believe if you closed a magazine and left it alone for a few days, all of the pictures inside would change to new ones. I have no idea why . . .

Jerre

I used to think (for an embarrassingly long time!)that FAQ meant For Any Questions, because that was what people said they would leave time for at the end of a presentation.

For Any Questions

When I was about 6 years old, me and my younger brother found the "Lord of the rings" book in my parents bedroom,it was the biggest book we had ever seen, except for the bible, so we thought it was the opposite,the Devil's book, so we hid it under the book shelf, unluckily, it was a library book...

Lillian

When I was young, before I knew my ABC's, I didn't understand how it was possible to read without speaking the words out loud. I thought my Mom was being silly when she would read to herself because I believed she was just staring at the page and pretending that she was somehow absorting the content.

Anna

When I first encountered "lb.", I had no concept of abbreviations and would read it aloud, "lib". So Dick and Jane would go to the store to get two libs of butter...

Heather Lodge

I used to think that the "rod" in a "Rod and Gun Club" was the tamping rod used to push everything down the barrel. I thought that people in these clubs only fired old fashioned muskets.

Ann Y.

I was broken hearted when I read a chalk message outside my friend Dorelle's house that said "Went Private". I stood outside in the street and shouted her name, because I didn't dare go onto her property, but she didn't come out. Deeply distraught, I ran home and fetched my dad who explained that the message was "Wet Paint", and I could still go and call on Dorelle, so long as I didn't lean up against the painty fence.

Dorelle's friend

As a child I played videogames, especially poorly translated ones from Japan. I sometimes tried to adopt some of the bizarre syntax and grammer of these games, assuming that while it seemed akward and at times incomphrehensible, it MUST be right.

Anon

When my sister, aged 10,was reading a book in the 1940's she said 'Dad, whats a brothel?' My father replied 'a sort of soup kitchen'. She believed this until she was married!

Alan