language

I used to believe…

My mother always has a habit of speaking too quickly, and running words together. Until I reached high school I was convinced that the phrase 'I might add' was actually, 'on my dad', and was puzzled why anyone would say such a thing.

I used to think that English was the only spoken language.One day in preschool my teacher invited a mom who who whould teach us French, when my teacher told me that I said,"I already know how to make french fries!"

I used to believe…

Me? I used to NOT beleive.

On my mother's forty-fourth birthday, when I was four, we did the thing where you shout, "ARE YOU ONE! ARE YOU TWO! ARE YOU THREE! . . ." All the way up to forty-four. And that was how I learned to count to forty-four.

Later, when I was counting to four on my own . . . I asked my older sister what number came next. She told me that the same pattern as with the previous numbers continued, and that forty-five came next. It made sense, I'll admit. It was a logical reply. But I didn't trust her, because she was always playing tricks on me.

So for a very long period of time, I refused to beleive that forty-five DID NOT come after forty-four, and anyone who told me otherwise was just trying to trick me.

I once wrote a birthday card to my mum. I decided to put a rhyme in it - but the only thing i could think that rhymed with "birthday".... was "gay". but that was brilliant cos that meant happy...right?
Happy Birthday Mum.
I think you are very gay.

Got some strange looks, i did.

I used to believe…

When I was about 8 or so, I was listening to talk radio in the car when the speaker was talking about an "n-word." Gasp! I thought I knew all the swear words. I asked my Mom what it was and she lied saying she didn't know. I thought I could figure it out. I rattled of a bunch of made-up words starting with "n." I wasn't very creative. They were words like, "nit" and "nuck."

I used to believe…

Whne I was in third grade, I didn't believe in zero. I thought it was ridiculous that there was a number representing *nothing*. So I did my math probmes without the zero. Needless to say, they weren't scored so well.

I used to believe that giving someone the finger actually put a curse on them. So I'd secretly go around my kindergarden class "cursing" the kids I didn't like luckily with my ring finger.

i never knew wat the f word was until lsiting to a couple of 2pacs albums
( greatist rapper, srry for the spam)
then i knew it was a bad word and jut tried to not ssay it but would wen following his lyrics ;)

I used to believe…

As a child, I was always confused seeing anywhere "SOS" (Save Our Souls) sign, because in my language "sos" means "sauce" - I remember I often asked my mom, why the hell the sauces are so popular on the ships since they mention so often about it!

I used to believe…

when i was younger, i loved playing make-belief. i pretended i was a teacher and i picked up a crayon and wrote HUGE 1...2...3's on the wall in red! my kindergarten teacher uses white board so it erases away easily..i thought i could do that to the wall too..
daddy and mommy shrieked when they came back..i ran to hide... oopsie

I used to believe…

A teacher once sent me to the office to get some supplies. When I brought them back a post-it was also included from the secretary to the teacher:
"here is your 'vanilla' envelope"

I used to think that babies could communicate with eachother, just as adults communicate with eachother. I just assumed there was "baby's English" and then "adult English". I also theorized that if you were at JUST the right age, (for example: 3 year, 7 months and two days old) you would be able to speak both languages.

At the time, I had a cousin who was 3 years old and her brother was just a baby. Me and my cousins all believed in my theory. We sought to exploit my 3-year old cousin and create a "baby translation company". :)

I used to believe…

When I was young I didn't know (of course) why people die. So I thought that it was limited by the number of words you were allowed to speak in your life. If you pass that number then you die. I never knew how many words that were, but surely I would by now have died already 1000 times.

I used to believe adjacent was pronounced add-juh-sent, the a making the uh sound like in the word uh. Then when I heard adjacent I thought I heard ajason, so I've pronounced adjacent over three different ways before learning the correct pronounciation.

I also thought a hundred and one hundred were different numbers. I also thought that after 99 came a hundred and so on to a hundred 99 and then came one hundred. So with me, not only did numbers have genders, personalities and relationships, their was also another whole set of numbers.

I used to believe that every number had a personality, gender and relationship with other numbers. Each number had their own personality. Here are a few examples. 1 was a sweet innocent boy. 2 was a bossy older girl. 6 and 7 were lovers, 6 was 7's girlfriend, 7 was 6's boyfriend. 7 was protective over 6. 10 was a sweet and protective guy who was in a love triangle with 11 and 12. However, when 10 got together with 11, 12 ended up together with 15. So they all ended up happy. 10 and 11 were dating and 12 and 15 were dating. 11 was sweet and goofy and 12 was mature and serious. 15 was a sweet and devoted guy who was very romantic with his girlfriend 12. 10 was a very sweet guy as well who was a protective and sweet boyfriend who cared a lot about his girlfriend 11. 13 and 14 were lovers as well. 13 was 14's girlfriend and 14 was very protective over 13. 13 often got into difficult situations, and liked to party. 14, 13's boyfriend was smart and helped her out with issues. 16 and 17 were lovers as well. 17 was a sweet guy and was the boyfriend of his girlfriend, 16. 16 liked to hangout, and had both a mature side and a silly side. 3 and 4 had a close relationship, similar to the relationship of 1 and 2, but 1 was more innocent then 3 and 2 was mroe bossy then 4. 4 was kinder. Anyway, I won't get into too many more details, but every number had a life like this. I had a big imagination for a little kid.

I used to believe…

At around the age of 7-9 I somehow came to the belief that the abbreviation "lb." for pound was actually an abbreviation for the unit of measure "lillebeeter". Perhaps I'd mis-heard the word "millimeter", which was still a relative rarity in 70's Canada?