language

I used to believe…

When I was younger, I used to think there was only so much space in your brain, and once you'd learnt too much of one language, you'd forget another language. (I grew up learning both English and Norwegian and was afraid of learning too much, cos then I'd start forgetting things) I used to think the brain couldn't fit more than two languages at most.

Imagine my surprise when I went on to learn three new languages and realised neither English nor Norwegian were squeezed out of my brain.

I used to believe…

When I first arrived in Australia I went to a Primary (Elementary) school in which we learned Greek as an extra subject. In England I had never learnt another language. I enjoyed learning all the letters of the Greek alphabet, they were interesting to look at and it was so much more fun to say "alpha" as opposed to "ay". Unfortunately I hadn't quite grasped the concept that Greek was an entirely different language of its own with different words for different things. When I had to write a sentence out in Greek I simply transferred all the English letters in the sentence for Greek letters. The result was, of course, a highly amusing code for my teacher to puzzle out. Needless to say, I didn't learn much Greek.

I used to believe…

when my daughter was 4 she came to me quite shocked and said "mam,my sister has just said an F word" i asked her to whisper the word to me so that i could tell her sister off,she them mouthed the words "piss off"

I used to believe…

Sometimes, when roads were being repaired or constructed a barrier was installed bearing the words 'Val de Travers'. I thought this was French for 'No Entry". Why this should be used in England didn't occur to me - it was actually the name of the construction company.

I used to believe…

It seems I'm not the only person to have assigned genders to the numbers. I took it a step further though, and imagined them as members in a family. For me, 1 is male, 2 is female, but they are also the little brother and sister, and don't get along. 4 is male and the "cool-guy" teenager who doesn't say much. 5 and 6 are husband and wife, with 6 wearing the pants in the family because she is bigger. 8 and 9 are the old aunts who never got married so they live together and have a bunch of cats (Like Patty and Selma from "The Simpsons"). 10 is the grandpa (Six's dad) who tries to keep everyone under control but mostly just shakes is head and mumbles alot. After ten, we get talking about the extended family... Don't get me started.

I used to believe…

My mother adamantly hates the word 'fart' and growing up we had to replace it with 'glink'. I just thought that was the way everyone said it. Imagine the looks I got when I used it in front of the rest of the normal population!! "Holy cow, that was one loud glink!!"

I used to believe…

After WW II, when my friend was 4 yrs old, he emigrated from Europe to the U.S. His 4 older siblings were in school and rapidly learning English, and his father was learning it at work. But his stay-at-home mom spoke only her native language. One day my friend went to the house next door to play with his little friend, but he was told his friend couldn't come out, and he should come again some other day. My friend said he went home wondering why he had to wait until "some Mother's Day" to play with his friend!

I was travelling with my Dad in the car one day when I saw him throw an apple core out the window. Thinking this was cool I threw my packet of chips out the window as well. Dad then yelled at me about how it was bad to litter, so when I told him I saw him do it, he simply said "it's different, it's biodegradeable". For years afterwards when my sister and I weren't allowed to stay up and watch TV with Mum and Dad I would tell her "It's biodegradeable" as I thought that meant something adults were allowed to do but not kids.

I used to believe…

When I was little and had been taught the Alphabet Song, but before I could read I thought that LMNOP (el-lem-en-opie) was one letter because of the way they're run together in the song. I still think of them that way when I'm trying to remember letter order. I'm 38.

I was in the school of thought at the age of 4 that when foriegners spoke in their native toungue they were infact trying to speak english, but hadn't quite grasped it yet. I thought that eventually the whole world would just speak english and nothing else as they all learned it.

I used to believe…

Soon after starting school 3 years ago, my friend's little girl came home upset because she couldn't read as well as some of the kids in her class, even though her counting was really good.

My friend comforted her by comparing her to me - saying "Auntie C can read and write, but she can't count to 100 like you can"

Her reading is much better now, but she still believes that I can't count without using my fingers and toes...

I used to believe…

BY age six i was pretty sure i knew all the "bad" words i wasnt suppose to use. So one day while riding in the car a bee flew in the back window and as i was trying to kill it i said "come here you cock sucker!!" I only screamed this once or twice though because it shocked my parents so much the car came to a stop & they just kind of looked at me drop jawed. i got the "what did you jst say?" bit and when i repeated it again was informed it was a bad word...BUT confused (cock was a rooster, sucker was a lolly pop, right?) asked why... and never really got a proper explanation. it wasnt untill years later i figured out what those looks were really all about LOL

I used to believe…

when i was younger, i didn't understand that "death" did not also mean "deaf". when i was 5, my doctor asked me during a hearing test "can u hear this?" i replied "of course. do u think i'm death??"

I used to believe…

When in 1940 my sister was 12 she found the word "brothel" in a book and asked her father what it meant. he replied "a soup kitchen for poor people"
Her husband disillusioned her at the age of 20.

I used to believe…

When i was little i used to think that people who stuttered had used up their allotted number of words for the particular word they stuttered on, and could'nt say that word again without difficulty

I used to believe…

My full name is Ericka Minerva but before I came to the U.S. I was known as Minerva. Nobody had ever called me Ericka before so I wasn't even aware of this being my name. Well, when I started kindergarted, the teacher noticed that I had 2 names and wanted to know which I preferred, so she asked me, "Do you want me to call you Ericka?" I responded with "Ericka?" meaning I didn't understand what she was trying to say so she took it to mean that I wanted to be called Ericka.
So for the first few weeks I would not respond when she would call me because I wasn't aware of this being my name. She finally got frustrated and called my parents(who also didn't know that they were calling me Ericka at school) and asked them why I didn't respond to "Ericka". They finally told me that "Ericka" was also my name and to start paying attention when I heard it. Well ever since then, I have never been called Minerva anymore. Everybody knows me as Ericka and it even sounds funny when somebody calls me by my "old" name!