language

I used to believe…

My friend Joe's cousins told thier baby brother that Fanequay (fan-ek-way) was a bad word and a few days later called him a piece of fanequay. He ran to his mom and told her and she said, thats nice dear. it sounded funny!

I used to believe…

One time in a hotel, during a trip, I was about 10, and my little brother was 7. We got in the elevator, and he kept kicking me , so I called him a brat. My poor little brother had clearly misunderstood the meaning of it, and shouted "MOM! Becca called me a SOB! This was in front of about 8 people.

Needless to say, he got a long lecture after we got off.

I used to believe…

When I was a child, I heard the term Blackmail. So I ask my mother. She told me it was a letter that was in a black envelope. Ok, not going to argue. It came back to haunt me when my child asked me the same thing, and of course, I gave him the same answer my mother gave me.

I used to believe…

When I was 6 yrs old my parents bought me "Muzzy in Gondoland", English-teaching book for children . There was a glossary at the end of book, one of terms was exactly "Gondoland", translated as "Gondolandia" and with explanation in brackets "(imagined realm)" Of course it meant Gondoland was only imagined and didn't exist in real, but I thought, since I already knew what does "land" mean, that in English "gond" means something like "to imagine" :)

I used to believe…

When I was about 3 or 4, my mom and I were both wearing leotards. My mom asked if I was comfortable in my leotards. I said "Yes. Are you comfortable in your 'momma-tards?"

I used to believe…

"Mickey & the Beanstalk" was a picture book and record version of the fable (done by Disney) that was very popular in my kindergarten class in the mid 1950s. An invisible narrator recounted the drama of Mickeys plight and the dim witted giant to an invisible pair of kids -- little girl and little boy. The record beeped when you were to turn the page. Gripped with fear for Mickey's safety, I listened as the narrator whispered and the picture showed Mickey climbing up the sleeping giant's shirt to filch the key to free the harp-woman. Suddenly the little girl breaks the tension describing some NEW character that Mickey should, "leave alone!"

Who was Well Enough and how did he get in the story?!

i used to belive that saying "shut up" was the biggest curse word and one day my cousin who is older than me said shut up to me and i ran up to my mom and clung on to her crying and at the same time trying to tell her that he called me a shut up

I was broken hearted when I read a chalk message outside my friend Dorelle's house that said "Went Private". I stood outside in the street and shouted her name, because I didn't dare go onto her property, but she didn't come out. Deeply distraught, I ran home and fetched my dad who explained that the message was "Wet Paint", and I could still go and call on Dorelle, so long as I didn't lean up against the painty fence.

I used to think that when people say "bless you" after you sneeze they were saying "bleshoo". I believed this for a very long time and I had no idea what it meant but I always said it when someone sneezed just to be polite. :-)

I used to believe…

Up until I was about ten, I thought that the ultimate insult was to scream "Chicken Pot Pie!" out of a window, with the blinds closed (especially bad if it was a fat person).

Why? I don't know.

I used to believe…

Once, in first grade, I thought that I had to put a comma after each word or something terrible would happen. Like this:

My,name,is,Jessica,I,like,cats,and,ice,cream,

You get the idea.

I used to believe…

After the last one, I learned about a hundred, thousand, and a million. At this time I understood that you could have a million and one, and such, but I didn't know what came after 9,999,999. Embarrasingly, I somehow got it into my head that fazonga was the next number up, then after 99,999,999 (9 fazonga, 9 million, 999 thousand, 999) would be GAZONGA, which was actually a 100 million, then a billion would be a MAZONGA.

I used to believe…

When I was four, I used to believe that I could only count to 10. Then my mom gave me 13 balls and asked me to tell her what the number was. I saw that they were a lot, so I suspected 10 because it was the highest. So I said 10, but it was wrong, and I didn't understand. I counted them. I stopped at 10. "Mum! There are 10 balls but 3 extra!" Mom said, "no, there are no extras, this number is called 13." then she taught me to count up to 20. At six, I also thought that 20 was the highest number, but I heard people saying things like 23 (which I now understood, from being taught adding, was 20 plus 3) and remembered what my Mom told me. So I thought, "hey, there's such thing as 20 + 3!" it got kind of confusing from there.

I'm and eighth grade teacher and a little 1st grader came to me and told me billy the 8th grader had said the f-word on the bus, and so i asked billy, and he said he'd never said that one the bus, ever, so i asked the 1st grader what the f-word was, and she told me she wasnt allowed to said that word, so i had her wisper it to me, and it was "fart", so i just told billy right infront of her not to be saying that f-word (fart) anymore

I'm a teacher and one of my little tattle tales came up to me one day and told me little tommy had said a bad word, so i asked him what the word was, and he said he was too embrarassed to say it, so i told him to spell it, and he goes "well... s... h..." and i said "okay!, tommy get up here!" and tommy goes "no i didnt say a bad word, i promise, so i asked my little tattler what the word was. and he wispers "stupid", leave it to first graders to spell....

I'm Russian. When I was 5 my family moved to Germany cause my father worked at the embassy there and I had to learn to speak German at the kindergarden. So when we came back to Russia and went to the seaside in the South on holiday I assumed that whenever you travel somewhere you have to learn the language they speak there. So naturally I decided to start with the basics and asked my father what the 'southern' for 'thank you' was.