3,499 beliefs in this area
I used to believe…
When I was very young, I was convinced that the pictures of people on book and magazine covers could see me as well as I could see them. All books had to be face down at night, or when I was getting dressed so they couldn't see me.
I used to believe that language was genetic: If you took a baby born to German parents and gave it to English parents, the child would grow up speaking German. I thought the child would have to wait until high school to take english classes.
I used to believe…
There were many crap definitions of rude words flying around my school. Twat was a pregnant goldfish, bastard was a male dog (go figure) and we thought that the worst word in the world sounded like "Rehhnaharn" because an angry Italian bloke once said it to Bugs Bunny in a cartoon.
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I used to think that the reason AMBULANCE was written backwards on the front of an ambulance was so left-handed people could read it!
I used to believe…
When my third child was about 2 years old, she was having a fit in the car because she was hungry. I told her to wait, that when we got home I would give her somthing to "Tide her over", meaning to stave off her hunger til dinner-time. Silence. A moment later, she let out a wail of such grief and fear, and she began to sob hysterically. "What's the matter, honey?" I asked, quite concerned. Between sobs, I discovered she was afraid I was going to tie her up, and so she pleaded with me...."Please, mommy, don't tie me over, please don't tie me over!"
I come from Norway. When I was a child I believed that twenty and seventy was the same number, they sounded alike to me, in norwegian. So when I was told to count to a hundred I counted ...28,29,80,81...
I used to ask my father to read me a bedtime story every night. Usually he did, but every now and then he would tell me that today he couldn't, because today he wasn't able to read. At that age (I must have been 2 - 3 years old) I was used to newfound abilities sometimes failing, so I accepted that adults must experience the same thing from time to time.
I used to believe…
When I was young I used to believe that people who spoke English were the only people to speak properly.
I thought that speakers of other languages only spoke those because they didn't know how to speak English.
I used to believe…
As a child I did a great impersonation of Mae West saying "come up and see me sometime!" with the hip wiggle and all. My parents told me I should bat my eyes when I did it too. I got into charecter, wiggled my hips, said the phrase, removed my glasses and began hitting myself in the eyes.
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I used to think that when my parents said "we're having a lie in" was actually "we're having a lion" So used to think there was a pet lion I knew nothing about!
I used to believe that if I had spelled a word incorrectly that it wasn't me who was wrong but that someone had changed the spelling for that word. A particular one that sticks in my mind is an argument I had with my mum about how "from" used to be spelt "form" and how could I possibly be expected to get it right if they keep changing it.
I used to think that when you wrote in cursive you didn't just join letters in a word together - I thought you could join all the words together too. I refused to believe my mother when she corrected me on that.
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I used to think that the end of the alphabet song ('Next time, won't you sing with me') was 'Next time, won't you sing with cheese.'
I was working on a science book report in third grade and decided that liquid and liquor must mean the same thing since they looked similar so I used them interchangeably much to the pleasure of my teacher.
I used to believe that, if you were up to learn a foreign language, you should look at a book and 'decode', like 's=y', 'u=a',"n=j", so the word 'sun' would be 'yaj' in other language for example.
I used to believe…
When I saw the word "idiot" in print, I mentally heard "I-did-i-ot". Makes absolutly no sense why, just did.
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I use to think elevators were alligators & cantalope was antelopes.
I once asked a teacher why a song that rhymed in French and Spanish also rhymed in English. He said they all did that. I thought he meant that everything that rhymed in one language rhymed in every language...which seemed very weird.
I used to be convinced that N came up twice in the alphabet. L N N O P... You get the picture
I used to think that "retired" and "retarded" meant the same thing. I once saw a bumpersticker on an old man's truck that had the word "retired" on it, and I remember feeling so sorry for that man. Jeez.
