language

I used to believe…

When I was about 9 or 10 I used to confuse the meanings of "sensitive" and "sensible", so once I was like to a friend "You're very sensible" when actually I meant sensitive, and her brother(6 yrs older than us) was like "No she's not!" and that's when I got to know the real meanings!

I used to believe…

My mother speaks excellent English and is somewhat intolerant of us children when our grammar is less than perfect. She enjoys playing with words, however. When we were younger, she tagged rubber spatulas with the nickname "baby robber". When she made icing or cookies or some other treat, the baby of the family had the agreeable task of taking care of any little bits left in the mixing bowl. If a rubber spatula was used to scrape the bowl clean, then the "baby" was "robbed" of part of their prize. Knowing my mother's low tolerance of inaccuracy in speaking, I assumed that was the correct name. Imagine my horror, in seventh grade HomeEc class, no less, when I discovered the truth.

I remeber sitting in the bath one day contemplating when I was about 4 or 5. I called my Dad into the bathroom and asked, "If lesbians are girls, are leprichauns the boy version of the same thing?" I was puzzled when my Dad fell about laughing. Thinking back, I think the letter 'L' made me think that being gay, you had to have an alternate 'boy' description starting with the same letter, and since Leprichauns were boys...it was logical to me!

I used to believe…

My mother told me that when she was little a girl told her that waving the finger meant "hi!".So she waved it at someone in the next car and got in trouble for it.

I grew up in Estonia, speaking Estonian. When I was nine, my dad moved to Sweden and after about 6 months me, sister and mum went to visit him. I knew that in Sweden people spoke Swedish, so I was convinced that once we'd get off the boat in Sweden and met dad we would all speak Swedish to each other and understand it perfectly. And when we returned to Estonia we would speak Estonian again... When we actually arrived I was very confused as to why we still spoke Estonian and, worse, why I couldn't understand what other ppl around me were saying....

I learned the Alphabet Song before I actually learned the letters of the alphabet. Whoever taught me the song ran the letters L, M, N, and O together so it sounded like "elemeno". For the longest time I thought Elemeno was the letter that came between K and P.

I used to believe…

When my youngest brother was about three years old, he asked our mother, "Mom, what does 'tell a fib' mean?"

Mom explained, "When you tell a fib, you say something that isn't true. You lie."

My brother was silent for a moment.

Then he asked, "Mom, did *you* ever use a telefib?"

I used to believe…

Until I was seven or eight, I thought the word "shit" was spelled and pronounced like "shet".

One day, I was watching "Double Dare" (a kids' game show in the U.S.), and the host, Marc Summers, was talking to a contestant about a certain pet that she owned.

"Does it shed all over the place?" he asked.

Well, you can imagine what I thought he said. I was appalled that Marc Summers would use such language and confused as to why he didn't get in trouble for it.

I used to believe…

Ever since he was in preschool, my youngest brother's favorite movie has always been "The Princess Bride"; he used to watch it constantly. At one point toward the end of the movie, a good guy sneers at a bad guy, "I want my father back, you son of a b****." Luckily, we didn't have to be concerned about my brother learning that naughty word: when he was about nine, we heard him recite the line as, "I want my father back, Hassanavabidge." He thought the bad guy's name was Hassanavabidge.

I used to believe…

my sisters and i invented an imagination game called the alley cat restaurant, some cross between a disney movie and a soap opera. my youngest sister, who always had to be the boy, played thomas o'malley (a la aristocats). there was some pretended romantic triangle and i said, "Tom doesn't love you. he's after one prime pussy." my mom came running in to the room screaming, "what did you say??" and i started yelling "pussy cat! pussy cat!" i didnt really know what i had said, i wa only about 9, but i got the fact that it wasnt something my mom wanted to hear coming out of my mouth.

I used to believe…

My 4 year old sister was learning to read when I explained to her the sound of the "a" in the word "about" was pronounced with the "schwa." She looked at me funny. I said, "Sound it out." She read very slowly, "Schwaaaabout."

I used to believe…

When I was 15 years old, I mention the word "pussy" and there was teenage women accusing me of saying a bad word then I was put to detention for the whole day. Because I thought that "pussy" meant cat, I first heard that word from a James Bond movie, Goldfinger and Octopussy.

I grew up in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood, and went to Catholic school. There was a family around the corner who had 3 boys that were mildy retarded. One day I asked my mother why they didn't go to the same school as me and my other friends. My mom said "because they're Jewish", without further explanation. So I made the association that "Jewish" meant "retarded", and it was years before someone cleared it up for me.

I used to believe…

When I was young, for some reason I was absolutely terrified of saying the word "please." My parents were always telling me that it was rude not to say please when you're asking for something, but somehow this only made me more scared. I still don't know what I was so frightened of.

I was in the car with my "friend(ya right) and i saw the christmas lights cuz it was christmas...i said holy cow! and my "friend" say "KELSEY SWEARED! im gunna tell" i looked at her like wtc! what did i do? i was 10 at the time so i wanted to strangle her!

I used to believe…

When i was about 5 years old i used to think 'Splendid' meant horrible, so one day when i left my hat at the park, and we went back to get it to find it gone, i exclaimed: "Maybe a Splendid robber took it!"