Once, I found a very fascinating book in my mother's book case. I read the summery on the back, and learned the word, "Courtesan", as well as many others(all of which got me into some sticky situations). I reasoned that from the sound of the words and the summary that a courtesan was a female lawyer.
Bursting to show off my new word, I addressed my aunt, who was a lawyer. I...asked her what she did as a courtesan. What happened afterwards was Not Fun.

Virginia W.

When I was little, my mom wanted to buy me a subscription to a magazine called "Children's Digest," but I absolutely refused to get it because I thought the magazine was all about digestion, and who wants to read about that?

Molly

When I was small I used to believe that if a books cover was facing up when put down, the characters would come out of the book. Once I read a book on vampires and my cat was with me so I thought my cat was waiting for me to go to sleep before it could bite me. I didnt sleep in my room for a couple of days because I though the characters were still roaming around.

Annaliese

I used to read to my younger neighber and make up words while doing so. I convinced her that once she learned to read she would understand what I was saying. I couldn't read either at the time, but I thought I was right.

raceystacy

When I was so young that I was still being read to at bedtime, my parents were working their way through the wonderful book "Robinson Caruso" when I began having some heavy-duty nightmares. When my parents asked me what was wrong, I finally asked, "Robinson Caruso didn't really kill and eat a little kid, did he?" When I found out we were talking about a young goat, the nightmares stopped...

JB, Chicago

In the eighth grade, a classmate of min was reading one of Jane Austen's novels for one of her book reports. I asked her what it was about. She told me that Jane Austen was once abducted by aliens and that her novels were about her experiences while so abducted. Later when I first tried reading Jane Austen, I decided that my former classmate must have been crazy for trying to tackle such a thing as early as the eighth grade, for Jane Austen is NOT easy reading. Since I never ran into that classmate again after middle school, I guess I'll never know for sure whether she had quite an advanced aptitude for understanding Jane Austen, or whether she actually WAS crazy (possibly in more ways than one). In any event, I must have believed for several years that Jane Austen was abducted by aliens.

Renee

When I was four or five and just starting to read I was very confused by the small print on packets of toilet paper. I read "2-ply" and thought this was actually a list of instructions, of which point 2 was "play". The fact that the "instructions" didn't say what you should play with, and that there was no number 1 (as it were) in the "list", didn't stop me from holding this belief for some time, to the frustration of my Dad who attempted several times without success to explain to me what "ply" meant.

Thoughtcat

When I was seven and eight, I would not read the last page of any book because I thought I would die if I did. Now where did I get THAT idea?!?!?! Strange!!!

WiserAngel

I used to believe that "critical acclaim" meant that they liked it, BUT had some major problems with it, too.

Beth

I used to believe that I could only borrow books from the library that had a 'P' on the spine, because that was my first initial. My mum thought I was a slow learner, since I brought home the same series of books about a monkey every time we had library class. I don't know why I thought this.

Penny M

I used to hear grown-up talk about the book "The Last of the Mohicans", I thought they were talking about a biography of a guy named, "Elastigo Heekins" -- a very stretchy man.

Jess

In most magzines aimed at kids, they have sections, where they publish drawings, photos, poems, and other stuff that readers did. I didn't know you have to have your parents mail it to the magazine, so I had a drawing and I just stuck it in the magazine and waited for it to appear published on the page.

Hailey

I used to have a subscription to Highlights magazine. Their slogan on the front cover was "Fun with a Purpose" which I thought meant "Fun with a porpoise." Each month I scanned the pages looking for the fun porpoise...

Anon

when i would see a "FIRE HOSE REEL" i thought that meant that it was indeed a real one, and that there were many fake fire hoses around to either trick people or just for display.

Anon

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

I thought the book "Ramona Quimby, Age 8" was only for kids eight years old and up. I was highly offended by the ageism.

Katie

I am 13 years old and I remember when I was learning to read I thought that everyone was making the words up and it was one big practicle joke to try to convince me into beliving them and that the letters were just squiggles that everyone said were letters. When I refused to listen to my teacher in Kindergarden and told her that she was lieing about the letters and words then as I procided to throw a tamtrum I was sent early for nap time so she wouldn't have to put up with me. I WAS AN ODD CHILD...

Sarah

At middle school, I was convinced that "destitute" meant a male prostitute.

After reading somewhere that "he was destitute...."

Malik Man

I used to think that the word "soliciting" meant the same as "socializing" and I remember being really confused at a restaraunt that had a sign saying "No Soliciting". I was worried that my family was all going to get in trouble for talking.

T.

I used to think that there were two n's in the alphabet, one after m and one right before z. i thought this until 2 grade. i thought that because when people said w x y and z, it sounded like w x y n z

Trout