language

I thought that "Oh, the humanity!" was an exclamation meant for pointing out that something was very humanlike.

Anon

I used to think Russians had surnames ending with ski because of the skiing they do in Siberia.

Anon

I used to think Yiddish was pronounced to rhyme with Swedish.

Anon

I believed that the word optimistic was something to do with opticians and being happy with your eyesight.

Anon

I thought that Roman Numerals were pronounced like the letters making up the numeral rather than like the number. For one birthday (I think I was about 8 or 9) I got the game Mega Man IV and would keep referring to it as "Mega Man I.V" (pronounced just like the abbreviation for "intravenous") even though my parents corrected me. I'm not sure how long it took for me to say it right.

Emperor Seppuku

When I started reading comics, I used to think people were yelling "APPLES" when they were happy to see a performance. Later on I learned the word "applause".

CAT

This is a rather stupid one lol, but I used to think that foreign schoolkids, like ones from Kosovo or somewhere like that, would have to have 'special lessons' with speaking English. You get the idea.

Natasha

When I was eleven or twelve, I saw the live-action Smurfs movie and there's a scene where a human says, "Stop saying, 'smurf' for everything! I mean, what does it even mean?! Smurf! Smurfitty smurf smurf smurf!" and a Smurf replies, "There's no call for that kind of language!", so I thought that "Smurfitty" was a swear word.

Anon

When I was learning to read, I pronounced "fire" as "fury" and "crocodile" as "croco-DEE-lay".

Anon

This one is actually my uncle. He lived with Granny and Granddad and my mother and aunt in a house next to a butcher's shop or something that had "hydra" written on the sign.
My uncle couldn't read back then and thought that the sign had his name on them.

Anon