language

I used to believe that the "long run" was an actual race. When I was 7 I spent the whole summer running back and forth in the yard because I thought the long run was part of the gym curriculum in the coming school year.

I used to believe…

When I was ten we were in NJ visiting family and my cousin taught me pig Latin. I thought it was so cool! I later told my Mom that I wished we'd never moved from NJ because they got to learn a foreign language in grade school. When I told her what that language was, she said, "Pig Latin isn't a REAL language." and started laughing hysterically. I'd been feeling very superior to my Ohio friends and was very disappointed to learn the truth.

I used to believe…

Well, this isn't a belief, it's more an event.
I was at school one day, Grade 3 or 4, and the mailman came past. my friend Lara shouted out to him, and he replied "Mama fungoulo (I'm not sure how to spell it) Lara!" to her. She didn't know what it meant, and we didn't either, so we decided it meant Hello, or good afternoon. So we started shouting it out to people on the street. Unfortunatly, we yelled it to a middle-aged Italian woman who DID know what it meant. We got a detention each, and had to clean the ENTIRE school oval, a big task for 3 8/9 year olds.
(For those of you interested, what we were shouting basically translates into "mother-f***er" or "go f*** your mother"

i used to live in chile, south america and only spoke spanish so whenever my parents would try to talk to eachother in a way that i couldnt understand they spoke in English (which i didnt no til i was like 9) so i thought that evreyone could understand those words..i was so surprised when i moved to Washington, USA.

i never knew how my mum and dad spoke to each other i thought they spoke alien until my mother exclaimed it was called languges now i know three english ,german and chinese

I used to believe…

when i was little my mom tol me that if u said a bad word ur mouth would get all filled with soap so whenever i accidently said a bad word i would run to the bathroom start spitting like crazy.

I used to believe…

When I was in elementary school kids were offered an after school program to learn Spanish as a second language. But because they just said they had Spanish after school, I thought Spanish was like an extra help class to learn something like math.

I'm not sure if this is quite in the right category, but before I learned cursive handwriting, I used to scribble on pages and pages of paper, making sure to put lots of loops in. I had to be ready for the third grade, and I wanted to be ahead of everyone else.

I used to believe…

A young friend believed that the word dummy was a swear word. I used dummy to describe a puppet and was scolded by the girl. "My teacher said that was a bad word!"
It was fine by my use of the word.

I used to believe…

when one of my friends was little, she just could not understand why people spoke different languages. she thought everyone thought in english and translated in their heads! how crazy! hee hee

I used to believe…

When I was 4 or 5 I read or was told that Adam gave all the animals their names (elephant, monkey, etc.), way back when in the garden of Eden. Then when I realized that other people speak different languages and don't use the same words we do in English, I wondered where they got their animal names from-- since they didn't speak English, they wouldn't use the "official" names that Adam had invented!

I used to believe that the meaning of term "screw you" was "forget you" (or something like that) because, often when people are frustrated, they'll say "screw this!"

As a child, I had just broken up with my "first boyfriend." My "friend" liked him and was talking relentlessly about him one day. I soon became annoyed with this (my wounds still fresh) and responded to her: "Well, just screw him! I don't care anymore!"

She obviously knew the exact meaning of "screw" because she never talked to me again.

I thought that no matter how you arranged any letters, it would always make a word. So 1 day when my teacher was asking for spelling words to put on a test, i Suggested ngfzztplk or something like that and everybody was like huh?

I used to believe…

Well, I guess I'm not the *only* person to give numbers genders, colors and personalities!

1=male, burnt orange
2=female, yellow
3=female, green
4=male, dark blue
5=male, orange
6=female, red
7=female, terquoise
8=female,dark green
9=male, burnt orange, but lighter than 1

4 and 5 were best friends, but 5 was often very bossy (probably because he was bigger). 6 and 7 were best friends, too, and they were tomboys. 1 and 2 were toddlers. 3 was a preppy "girly girl". 8 was often very lonely; she had no friends. And 9 was a weird teenager who just didn't care about anything and he did drugs.

I hate math.

I used to believe…

my friend used to think "dumbass" was pronounced literally, so she went around calling people a "dum-bass" right up until she was 16. She only figured out then that it was acutally "dum-arse" but a hell-of-a-lot of people thought it was hilarious when she said it!

I used to believe…

for some reason, i distinctly remember the first time i heard the words "shit" and "fuck". i was sitting in the doctors' surgery with my mum and best friend, aged about 5 or 6 (i'm guessing). anyway, my best friend was repeating these words and i asked if i could have one. i rather liked the sound of "fuck", thinking it just sounded nice and round and squidgy as a word. i adopted this word and it was only later that i learned it's true meaning. I was disappointed to find out that my lovely word meant something so "rude" and "naughty".