language

I used to believe…

When I was young and I saw a sign with the words "Newly Wed" I didn't understood what it was saying.
In sweden we call it "Ny-gifta". "Ny is like the english word "new", but the other part "-gifta" is not like the english word "married". In Sweden "gift" is the same as poison.
So when I saw these signs of "Newly Wed" I thougt that somebody have spread poison all over the area infront of the sign.

I used to believe…

My percocious cousin developed a capacity for language early on. Earlier, that is, than he developed the needed vocabulary. So he was speaking in coherent complete sentences, which were about half english and half words he completely fabricated. Only some were ever decoded, and the only one I can remember right now (danged memory block!) is his word for fire-engine: Synanoonie. He also had some notable ones for various zoo animals which slip my mind at the moment

I always thought that the letter A was red, B was green, C was golden yellow... and so on, to Z which was black. I haven't the slightest idea where I got that (seeing how words are printed all in black in books) but it just seemed logical. When someone tried to show me how to spell my name using a blue crayon, I yelled "That's not how you make a A!"

Similer deal with numbers, whose colours mixed when you added them. Oddly enough, I still think of colour in this way.

I believed that "bad words" (shit, fuck, damn, etc.) were illegal up until a certain age. I thought that when I turned a certain age, I would be able to say all of them as often & freely as I pleased. I also believed that "idiot" was a curse & so i never said it. & I got mad at my friends when THEY said it, because I thought they were cursing.

I used to believe…

We used to watch a lot of public television in my family. I remember watching a NOVA special on black holes with my dad. They interviewed Stephen Hawking, who can't talk properly due to a degenerative illness. When I asked my dad why the man was talking so strangely, he told me his voice was sucked out by a black hole. I completely believed him, and today he won't admit to having ever said it.

I used to believe…

As a child, I believed that foreign languages were just random babble, like baby-talk, that some adults spoke in because they had never learned to speak properly. I remember feeling sorry for them, never learning such basic stuff. I figured that maybe they were just "mentally challenged" or something. It always confused me, then, that they seemed to understand each other perfectly. Maybe they had telepathy or something to compensate for their defective speech patterns. I thought that this sounded pretty cool, and envied them in this aspect. I was an odd kid.

I used to believe…

Once in seventh grade we all had to read from our science books aloud. Well, I was reading a sentence and I came across the word Organism of course I thought I said Orgasm, so that's what I read outloud in front of my whole class. Everyone broke out laughing, even the teacher!

I used to believe…

When I was little my dad told me that it wasn't nice to say butt. So one day in the car my dad was talking and he said "...but I had to" After hearing this, I immediatly said, "Daddy don't say Butt, it's a bad word." He then had to explain to me that there were two kinds of but(t)s. hmm..?

I used to believe…

One of my earliest memories was as I was learning new words, I got very confused by cuss words, particularly Darn and Damn. I couldn't remember which word was the "OK" word to use.

Imagine a 2 year old suddenly shouting "DAMN!" after tripping!

I used to believe…

When I was on vacation, we drove past a bookstore, and I read the sign(silently), but accidentally left out a letter. It was a Christian bookstore, which it also said on the sign. I only thought 'That's an unusual name for a store.' Fortunately we drove past it again, because we had gotten lost, as usual, and this time I was able to see that the name also included the letter 'I'.
The name of the store was 'Arise'.

I used to believe…

When I started learning to speak German (it was the only foreign language offered at our high school bvesides Spanish) I got a book from the library the summer before, so I could learn a few words. I told one of my friends, and we decided to tease our other(very gullible) friend. For some reason we started called her 'kugelschreiber' (ball-point pen) and for several weeks she believed that it was some kind of obscenity.

I used 2 beleive that if i stuck my head behind the sofa and sweared my mum wouldnt ear me.I used 2 do this all the time until i realised she could hear me and she made me tell her what every single word i said meant..obviously i didnt know i was only 6! lol!

I used to believe…

at grade 3, I was assigned to write about War, for Remembrance Day. I wrote a confusing story about the bad things done by "The Whore"; confusing because the bad things would apply to both Wars & dirty Whores, & the teacher was curious where I learned all this at 7 years old.
I just figured that a Big, Important concept like War should use Big, Important spelling -- W's spelled with a silent h & the "OR" continuing into a trailing e

I remember talking about metaphors as a child at school. The kids were giving examples such as 'as blind as a bat'. I piped up with 'cold as a penguin's chuff'. It wasn't until years later I realised that a) the teacher really did look that horrified; and b) a penguin's chuff is NOT the feathers on it's tummy, regardless of what Dad had said.

I used to believe…

When I was a child I couldn't understand how a radio made in Japan could play songs in portuguese ou english. If they are made in Japan, so they should just be able to play japanese songs

I used to think that "damn" was a really bad swear word, but it was in one of my favorite songs at the time, "The Search is Over" by Survivor. I was shocked but rather excited by the badness of this, and I used to play it really loud and sing along in front of my mother, just to see what kind of reaction it would get out of her. She didn't notice at all. I wasn't sure if I felt triumphantly naughty or just disappointed.

I used to (and still sort of do) always assume some numbers were more *special* than others. namely 5, 2, and 50.

i also remember multiplication in strange ways, rather than just memorizing or counting each time) because i think of the relationship two numbers have with each other, such as : 6 and 7 are unusual numbers, so multiplying them together creates a regular numbe:42

I used to believe…

When I was really little, I used to imagine numbers had personalities. 1 was a guy and he was dating 2. 3 was jealous of 1. 4 and 5 were always arguing. 6 was always confused. 7 and 8 looked on with bemused disinterest. 9 was always trying to get 0 to lose some weight. 1 and 0 were buddies and were always hanging out with each other when 1 wasn't being romantic with 2.