language

I used to believe…

When I was little I used to believe that after jail you would be sent to Peru because I thought they were saying fifteen years with "Peru." So when I watched crime shows and said fifteen years with parole, it meant fifteen years then sent to Peru.

I used to believe…

When I was younger I use to believe that one plus one equalled a window

I used to believe…

When I was little I used to believe that the blank pages at the end of the book were for writing a different ending if you didn't like the original ending to a book.

I used to play the Rayman game for gameboy, and there was a password system where the player had to enter a code to get to the next level. I once entered a made-up code, trying to get to the highest level, and the screen said "Invalid!" afterwards. I thought the game was insulting me for thinking I could trick it, when it was actually implying the other definition of the word.

I used to believe…

When I was around 5 years old I went to Mexico on a vacation. I was in the pool at our hotel and this little Mexican girl came up to me because she wanted to play. I was trying to talk to her but she kept speaking in Spanish and I couldn't understand her. I thought that she could understand english and that's what it would be in her head, but since she was born in Mexico she HAD to speak Spanish.

I used to think "decorum" was a bottle of rum that sat on a table as decoration. I blame it on the book where I first saw it used...

I used to believe…

When I was about 5 or 6 years old, I thought, I could count up to 1 million. I counted correctly to 100, but then 101, 102, 103,.....108, 109, 1000, 1001, 1002, 1003, ....1008, 1009, 1 000 000.
I actually thought, this was the right way.

I was very proud on this ability and always wondered, why I didn't get very much respect for this by grown-ups.

I used to believe…

When I was 4 a Sunday school teacher told me I had to "apologize" to another student for something, except I did not know what that word meant. I thought she said polish your eyes, and that it was slang for "you must now cry" or something. So I started crying and rubbing my eyes. She asked me what was wrong, and I said I didn't know what the word meant. She explained that it meant to say sorry, which I promptly did.

I used to believe…

When I was about 7 I stayed with my grandparents for the summer. They kept talking about how they were going to "win a bagel". I just didn't understand why they were going to win a bagel. I later learned they were going to buy a camper, a Winnebago!

I heard the phrase "sitting on your laurels" - I thought laurels was a polite term for buttocks.

I used to believe…

When I was little, I remember asking my dad why people that spoke other languages didn't just "learn how to speak normal" like we did. I thought English was the regular way to speak and other languages were just made up nonsense.

I used to believe…

When I was a kid I thought that New Hampshire was pronounced New Hamster. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why everyone (including the teacher) laughed at me in 5th grade when I gave my presentation on New Hamster!

I thought it was against the law to swear. I only knew it was bad, and imagined it to be as bad as stealing, murder ect.

I used to believe…

Up until I took a 3rd year of spanish i thought everyone thought in english. I figured out it was wrong when i started thinking in spanish

I used to believe…

Before I could read, but with some letter recognition, I mistakenly believed the crosswalk in front of the church said "Presbyterian Crossing". One morning I asked my Dad where the Baptists and Catholics crossed the street.

I used to believe…

Not long after when I first learnt to write, I believed that because I was left handed, and everyone else used their opposite hand, that I had to write the opposite way (all my letters were backwards, and I wrote right to left across the page)

Apparently I would hand in my work written backwards, and when the teacher failed to understand what on earth it said, I would happily read it out as if it were normal.