I used to believe the word fudge was the f-word. I couldn't understand why there were all those Beverly Cleary children's books with the word "fudge" in them! I thought that was terrible!

anon

i was on the school bus as a 3rd grader. a couple of 5th graders were giving each other the middle finger and i asked what it meant. Being 5th graders, they told me it meant "i love u". this caused complications with my dad....

Annabel

When I was roughly four I used to hear swear words and repeat them. In order to stop me embarrassing her in public places my mother told me the word 'bungalow' was a swear word. I believed this until I was eleven and got very confused when people talked about one-storey houses.

Anon

When i was around 4, i thought "dead" was a bad word. I also thought "Forget it" was a bad word.

forget it

in grade school, i used to believe that test tube was a naughty word and was embarassed to say it.

miss sara

My mom tried not to swear in front of me, but one day she accidentally broke something in the kitchen. She shook her fist and said said "Shit". She didn't see me, so she hoped I hadn't heard. (I think I was about 3 or 4.)

But I had. She caught me in front of the mirror later, shaking my little fist and yelling "Dit! Dit!" because I couldn't make the "s' sound yet.

To this day, Mom occasionally says "dit".

fey

When i was 7, i thought f*** was some sort of naughty British name for a street in London because that's what my mom said it was. A few months later, I was at a sleepover and my friends asked if i knew what f*** meant and i told them what my mom had told me and my friend cracked up and told me what it "really meant"(she said it was a female dog.) I argued with her for a good hour and a half and we stayed in a fight for 3 months. Now that we both know what f*** means, we joke about our fight all the time.

Sarah

when i was little my mom tol me that if u said a bad word ur mouth would get all filled with soap so whenever i accidently said a bad word i would run to the bathroom start spitting like crazy.

soapy

Ever since he was in preschool, my youngest brother's favorite movie has always been "The Princess Bride"; he used to watch it constantly. At one point toward the end of the movie, a good guy sneers at a bad guy, "I want my father back, you son of a b****." Luckily, we didn't have to be concerned about my brother learning that naughty word: when he was about nine, we heard him recite the line as, "I want my father back, Hassanavabidge." He thought the bad guy's name was Hassanavabidge.

Katherine

When I saw my 6th grade teacher for the first time at a school assembly, I leaned over to my mom and said "He looks like a prick" thinking it meant uptight and proper, she gave me a look like she was going to smack me and told me never to use the word again. Only later, when finding a dictionary, did I understand its true meaning.

B

Until I was seven or eight, I thought the word "shit" was spelled and pronounced like "shet".

One day, I was watching "Double Dare" (a kids' game show in the U.S.), and the host, Marc Summers, was talking to a contestant about a certain pet that she owned.

"Does it shed all over the place?" he asked.

Well, you can imagine what I thought he said. I was appalled that Marc Summers would use such language and confused as to why he didn't get in trouble for it.

Katherine

My dad had a number of words and phrases to replace bad ones when swearing at the Philadelphia Eagles playing football. Some were typical: "sugar", "son of a gun", "darn it anyhow"... But he had this one, "Jeepers Pelts", which I think is actually some derivation of a Polish swear. But as a kid I thought there was an animal called Jeeper whose pelt (fur) was poisonous, so if it touched you it would make you mad and say "Jeeper's Pelts!!"

Ann Y.

when i was younger (around the age 2) and in hospital with my monthly asthma attack my aunt was watching a programme with me when a man yelled "book'm dano murder one" i of course misheard this and jumped off the bed screaming" F**CK'M DANO MURDER ONE" i yelled this all theway round the hospital wioth my embarressed mother and aunt running after me and apologising.

susie

When I was in highschool, some friends of mine learned German, and they carefully looked up in the dictionary how to be abusive in German. They used to say to each other (and anyone else who wouldn't slap them) "du bist eine runzel hahn" -- meaning "you are a wrinkled cock".

Once I was in University my family had a Swiss exchange student come and stay, and somehow this came up with her. She at first looked puzzled, and then said "why did they find it so offensive to call each other wrinkled rooster?"

CT

When I was younger, I had growing pains. One day I told my friend that my shin hurt really bad. Shocked, she shushed me and said that I shouldn't say that because God didn't like that. Anyway, it took me around 3 or four years to realize she thought I said shit. This realization was sadly discovered on a bathroom wall, when I thought they spelled shin wrong.

Anon

When I was really little, maybe three or so, I got really into musicals. (What little kid doesn't like movies where everybody sings and dances the day away?) Anyways, one of my favorites was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but, being three, my words never really came out very well, so whenever I tried to sing along to the song, it came out "Shitty Shitty Bad Bad". When my mother told me that "Shit" was a bad word, I somehow pieced together that the entire song was about not saying bad words.

At some point, we were at the mall and some random group of teenagers started cussing. Imagine everybody's surprise when I let go of my mother's hand, strode over to the group and began my rendition of "Shitty Shitty Bad Bad".

Me

when i was younger, around 7 or 8, i was watching a program when an advert about the grand prix was on. knowing my father was big on cars, and me seeing the cars flashing by in the background, i ran in on my parents who were holding a conversation with my nextdoor neighbours who we invited round for tea, i ran in and shouted "Dad Dad! the Grand Pricks(prix) are on tv!"

cyber

My little brother used to believe that the 'bat man' dance (where you streak two fingers across each eye) was a swear word. My other brother and I used to walk up to him and do it all the time just to get him to think we were swearing at him.

He also believed that teenagers were people that walked around in trench coats and flashed everyone.

Dawn

When I was about 6, I was very innocent, and when a girl rushed into the classroom shouting "I KNOW THE F-WORD!" we were all desperate to know what this mythical, legendary word could be. "YEAH IT'S FURT" she shouted. We were very shocked. Until I was about 10, I believed that that was the "f-word" and I have a vague recollection of telling someone to "Furt off."

Emma

i used to believe that if you said a swear word you would turn into the opposite sex the next day

jess