There's a line in a school hymn that goes 'I wait with baited breath' - I thought that meant the hymn writer's breath smelled of maggots.
A childhood belief about hymns
others believed things like this
- If you hold your breath and make a wish under a highway tunnel it will come true....I still hold my breath :)— aj
- I used to believe God had a pet tortoise. There was a hymn we sang that went "Great things he hath taught us"— Lozza
- When he was a kid, my husband thought the hymn "bringing in the sheaves" was "bringing in the cheese."Anon
- I held my breath near cemeteries because I thought it would be rude to inhale spirits. Anon
- A friend on mine thought that smoking menthal cigarettes would make his breath minty fresh.Anon
- Every old person I met smelled bad, and I thought old people smelled bad because they were slowly rotting.— Jasmine