language

I used to think the word "rouse" meant a single grain of rice. Since "mice" is the plural of "mouse", and "lice" is the plural of "louse", it seemed to make sense that "rice" would be the plural of "rouse".

I used to believe…

When I was in preschool, my favorite movie was Disney's "Hercules". Unfortunately, I was cursed with the inability to pronounce it right.

Amazingly enough, I would always pronounce it "fuckules". Meaning, it sounded like, "fuck-you-lees". I would go around saying it so casually, wondering why adults would stare at me so weird. Nobody told me I was pronouncing it wrong, because only my family ever heard it much, and they were too amused with my mispronunciation to tell me.

Anyway, one day, I came home from preschool and happily told Mom, "Hey, Mom! My teacher taught me something today!" Curious, Mom asked me what. I then shouted, "HA.. HA.. HERCULES!"

The look on Mom's face was priceless. She KNEW what I had said at school..

I still remember that absolutely HORRIFIED expression on her face.

I used to believe…

When I was about 8 years old I was briefly interested in astrology. I was born in September so I'm a virgo. Virgo is the Latin word for virgin. I assumed they were interchangeable words, I liked 'virgin' better, so I used to tell people "I'm a virgin!" Nobody ever corrected my mistake, I just stopped saying it when I decided I didnt believe in astrology anymore.

I used to believe…

When I was two years old, I was having ice cream with my family at some reunion or something. Everyone noticed that I'd stopped eating the ice cream and had been sitting-- for a good 5 minutes-- scowling into my bowl.

"Kelly, what's wrong?" my mom asked.

"Well," I said, "This bug in my ice cream is fucking with me."

I used to believe…

When I was maybe five or so, I overheard my dad saying, "Son of a bitch." I didn't know what it meant, so I asked him, "Dad, what does 'son of a bitch' mean?" He answered, "Don't you ever say that again." I didn't realize that he hadn't answered my question, just forbid me to use the phrase, so when my older brother told me later in the day that he was going to take my portion of that night's desert I yelled at him, "SON OF A BITCH!"

I used to believe…

When I was about 8 I mentioned to to my mother that the Rolling Stones song 'I can't get no satisfaction' was grammatically incorrect and that it should be 'I can't get any satisfaction'.

She explained that they were using poetic licence.

For years I thought there was a special government office where you could apply for a special licence to use incorrect grammar.

I also thought this applied to using the numeral 4 instead of the word 'for' on a 'for sale' sign.

I used to believe…

When I was in seventh grade, I heard the word "decapitated" for the first time. I didn't know what it meant, but I thought it sounded cool, so I went around using it. I had a really mean gym teacher, and she did something that really made me mad. I blurted out that she was decapitated because I thought it was something you could say instead of cussing. I found out the hard way what it meant when she put me in detention and dragged me to the guidance counselor like I was some kind of terrorist.

I used to believe…

There is a Jordanian who owns a local restaurant/grocery close to where I live. I speak Arabic, so I like to speak it with him. He is Muslim, so I usually throw out an "As Salaam Alaikum" when I enter his store. 2 days ago, I was in a rush, so I yelled out the Arabic equivalent of "How are you?" to him instead, on my way to the back of his store. An older American couple, were in the store.

When I got up to the counter with my items, my friend said "That couple just apologized for your rudeness, & assured me that all Americans were not as intolerant as you." I laughed so hard that I cried.
The phonetic Arabic for "How are you" is "Eh, fuhkoo."

I used to believe that I could only borrow books from the library that had a 'P' on the spine, because that was my first initial. My mum thought I was a slow learner, since I brought home the same series of books about a monkey every time we had library class. I don't know why I thought this.

I used to believe…

When the movie, American Pie, first surfaced, I was about 11 or 12. I had heard them used the term "fudgepacker" in the movie and started using it all the time thinking it had something to do with a guy who works with chocolate. I had ended up in detention for using that word in school and no one would explain to me what it meant. I'm well aware now it is a slur against a gay man. Hahaha.

I thought that the word "Union" was pronounced "Onion".

Once, me and my family were naming banks to pass the time. I said "First Onion Bank"...

My mom corrected me...

I used to believe…

when i was in school i learned about the 5 romance languages, and of course i didn't pick up on why they were really called romance languages, i thought (for quite some time) that they were called that because all of those languages sounded really romantic when spoken, and of course it made sense because everybody always said that when someone spoke French, it sounded really sexy!

I used to think that genuflect was a bad word. I mean, come on! What does that sound like to you?

We weren't a very religious family...

I also used to think harass was a bad word, because of sexual harassment.

I used to believe…

When I was six, I was playing DJ on tape. My uncle came in and started acting like a goofball doing voices and stuff like that. He was acting like the guy that does the station ID, and he said in a deep voice, "w-e-r-d, weird."
I actually thought that was the correct way to spell it until I was in third grade and saw weird on a spelling lesson and the teacher pronounced it.

i saw one of the national lampoon's family vacation movies when i was like 5 and chevy chase told someone to "kiss my ass" and i was confused as to why he would want someone to do that.

I used to believe…

My brother used to think that "crap" was a swear word. Well one day I said it to him (in one of our MANY fights) and he told me back that he would tell on me for sayingit, that I was going to get into so much trouble. I told him it wasn't a swear word and he insisted that it was. After awhile I got annoyed and yelled out to my Dad "IS CRAP A SWEAR WORD??" After my Dad finished laughing, he informed us that it wasn't but still not a nice thing to say. I turn stuck out my tongue to my brother and said "So there!"