My dad used to think that "R.I.P." on a tombstone stood for Rip Van Winkle because dead people are "sleeping" for a long time.
A childhood belief about people
others believed things like this
- when i saw R.I.P. on a tombstone I thought that was how they died— Brandon
- I used to believe that a street sign that read "Dead End" meant that there were dead people buried there.Anon
- If you stood in front of the fire for too long your spine would melt!— Helen, Cumbria
- I thought that I could get a suntan if I stood really close to a fire for long enough.— Mat
- I used to think that "cross-eyed" meant that people had X's for eyes, like dead people in cartoons.— Tim
- Long grass with black seeds were really ant hotels, and the seeds were sleeping ants.— angelsheep