language

i used to think that all foreign people were actually english people, but that their government had come up with a secret code for everyone to speak so that we couldnt understand them

I used to believe…

When I was a kid, my mother was forever saying, "Why can't you be a gribble?!" This caused me no end of grief. I could never figure out what the heck a gribble was and why I should want to be one.

It was several years later I realized what a gribble was. I guess I was forever asking my mother questions - especially when she told me to do something. Her favorite thing to say was, "Why can't you be agreeable?!"

i have always thought that letters have genders and personalities. for example, 'A' was very soft and kind and showed up when you needed her. 'B' was sad and masculine, because boy and blue start with B. the masculine letters are B, D, G, H, J, M, N, O, R, S, T, W, and X. the feminine ones are A, C, E, F, I, K, L, P, Q, U, V, Y, and Z.

dont ask how i came up with this

I used to get confused as to the difference between bearing a child and baring a child. Whenever I heard of a mother bearing children, I thought this meant she took off their clothes before bathtime or whatever. Darn those words that sound the same!

I used to believe…

My mom sewed lots of my clothes and the sewing machine didn't always cooperate. She called the bobbin "a bitch". Needless to say I gave my 4-H leader quite a surprise when I correcteed her!

I used to believe…

My dad doesn't swear in front of us - will still take me to task for saying "damn". When I was little and he got mad at other drivers, he'd pound the steering wheel and say "idiot, idiot, idiot!". so of course I thought it was a terrible swear word.

I used to believe…

In grade 7, we were having a science test on organisms. When we were finished, we were talking about the answers that we put for some of the questions. And since it was a big group of people, I was talking rather loud when I said "for number 38, I put living orgasms!"

And why is it that there's a 90% chance that a teacher would be near to hear that?

Very embarrassing.

I used to believe…

When I was very little, about two or three, I was in a home day care. The lady who owned it had her kids help out a bit. Their son, Justin, who was twelve at the time was playing with me once and he was probably teaching me new words. He taught me the word ''truck'' except in the form of ''the F word''.
Well, one day when my parents were driving me home from day care, I saw a truck and started yelling the F word repeatedly, pointing to a truck. My parents were quite sure sneaky Justin had taught me that. He's done goofy things like that before, like putting pom poms in a certain place on a Halloween skeleton at seven.
We met him a few years ago. He was in his twenties. My dad told him this story and he was beet red!

I used to believe…

for the longest time i thouht that when people said "throw caution to the wind" they were saying "throw caush into the wind." i understood the meaning, but i could not figure out for the life of me, who or what caush was.

I speak French and my sweet little sister, always trying to impress me, announced proudly that she could also speak French and spoke for the rest of the day in English but with an outrageous French accent, insisting that this was proof she was fluent.

I used to believe…

When I was a child, I overheard my second eldest brother and his friends saying that when they were children, they knew all of the swear words except the long one beginning with "m." For some reason, I thought the elusive "m" word must have been "Makker." I never dared use this word and was shocked when I heard that it can short for "Malcolm." I then decided I must be wrong and was puzzled until discovering the word was in fact "mother******."

i used to think that 0 and 1 were the same thing, with different names. i was sure i was right, so i kept correcting the teacher everytime she asked me what 11 minus 3 was.

I used to believe…

My early childhood was spent in Latin America. We moved to the US when I was 5. There I befriended a newly arrived Chinese girl who didn't speak English yet. My parents wondered how we communicated, and I said we just spoke Spanish. I honestly thought that if you don't speak English, you speak Spanish. There's probably some poor Chinese girl out there right now that's speaking Spanish thinking its English.

I must have read a lot of mysteries as a child, because I remember thinking that the word "indict" was pronounced "in-dikt." At the same time, I heard the correct pronounciation, "in-dite," on Perry Mason or other such TV shows. Although I understood them both to mean the same thing, it wasn't until years later that something clicked in my head and I realized they were exactly the same word.

I used to believe…

one day in second grade my class was listening to the announcements. some music came on and i said this is funky music. a girl said ooooh he said the f word. i started crying and thought that was the f word until a friend told me it in third grade

I remember my aunt teaching me some basic manners. She gave me a piece of gum, and said "now say thank you" which I did, and she replied "you're welcome" but i thought she said "you're well gum" and thought you only had to say that when you gave someone a piece of gum.