I used to think when I was about 3 or 4 that whenever someone said a swear word, God would zap that person with a lightning bolt that came out of his finger. The more often a person swore, the greater the voltage of the lightning bolt.

Sara

When I was little, I went to Ukrainian dance camp, and my mom and I heard this man swearing. He said "Bullshit." I asked my mom what it meant, and she said she didn't know, it must have been something in Ukrainian. So the next day I went around asking all the grownups who spoke Ukrainian what "Bullshit," meant. Mom had some explaining to do.

Anon

When I was about 6, my 13 yo cousin told me told me that sh!t meant bird, so I said do my mom, hey look at that cute little sh!t! Needless to say, my cousin was grounded.

Anon

I thought it was against the law to swear. I only knew it was bad, and imagined it to be as bad as stealing, murder ect.

Hoppip

I thought "devil" was a swear for a long time. I also thought that if you swore, worms would grow in your mouth(something my mom said). So that certainly stopped me from swearing! I believed this until I was 9.

Hoppip

I was so paranoid as a kid when it came to swearing. I truely and actually believed that the phrase "shut up", even in a joking manner, was considered cussing.
Whenever I got mad on the playground, I would always yell "BE QUIET!!!" instead of shut up. Needless to say, that didn't really work. ^-^
But nevertheless, it wasn't until the fifth grade until I started saying "shut up".

Jessica

I’m Spanish speaker and I was until I was 35 y/o. When I was kid my parents never explained to me the meaning of some bad words but they told me they were bad words and as I heard them all the time with out understanding what they were talking about, I thought anything that I couldn’t understand was bad, at the same time the Beatles song became so popular on the radio and I was convinced that people liked to sing bad word songs.

Victor Ruiz

When I was about 5 or 6 I asked my mom why people called African Americans "the n-word". She said and I quote:

"Oh, it's because they're always nigging you for money"

I believed that until I was in the 9th grade.

Guy

When i was 5 i would watch full house and when Michelle said heck i would cover my ears and say she is bad she said a curse word and my mom would giggle but keep watching and my sister would say that's not a bad word what the heck is your problem and i smacked her in the head my mom then told me that wasn't nice to do to my sister and heck wasn't a curse word oh i said why the heck you didn't tell me

Anon

I thought that "bigot" was a swear word because I heard someone call someone else that as an insult (which i guess it is but I didn't know what it meant, figured it just meant jerk or asshole or something)

Bobbert

When I was much younger, I was talking to my dad and my sisters about skipping school, and my dad referred to it as 'wagging school'. I misheard him and said, loudly and exitedly "I want to wank!"

Alee

My mother had taught us a song that went:
bird bird bo bird
banana fanna fo fird
me mi mo mird...
bird!
We started singing the song to things around us.
Then we say a truck.
truck truck bo buck... banana fanna fo...

We got in big big trouble. Another time my brother was watching my dad trying to get him a soda. the machine took his money, and he said s**t. My brother then slapped his knee and repeated him. He started to yell, then said 'where did you hear that?!' and he said 'from you!'

Nitori

when i was small i used to think that stupid was a really bad swear word and when i heard someone say stupid i would bawl my eyes out and then expecially if my sister said it .. i would pull her hair and then one day i realized that it meant dumb and it wasnt bad so i started saying it and teaching little kids it wasnt bad and one day wen i was like 9 years old i told a kinder garden that it wasnt bad and since then i alwayz got in trouble

isabela

I used to think that stupid was a curse, and when my dad took me to the hard rock cafe there was a song on called 'stupid girl' or something (it was a long time ago) where the girl sais stupid about 17 times in a row. I was in shock. my dad was like 'what?'

i also used to think that cursing was saying a bad word, and that the word 'swearing' was a bad word. And for a while, that they both meant casting a mean spell on someone...

Anon

I used to believe that the "S" word was really ship soo i went home thinking that it was ok to swear i was only like 5 and i went home and started saying holy ship because i had older friends and they always said holy s*** in front of me until i figured out it was really s*** and not ship

Anon