language

I used to believe…

When I was younger, I would listen to English people talking on TV [My first language is French] and then tried to immitate them...but I didn't know how to speak English and I noticed that they put lots of "hmmmm"s in their sentences, so I thought that if I say random stuff and pretend to speak English and put "hmmmm" anywhere I wanted, I would be able to speak English. So it would sound like "asdfkjanskjnfaen hmmmm....faoinweofinasdf hmmm....asldfoaind hmmm..." and on and on. I feel stupid now that I think about that.

I used to believe…

when I was three I believed it was ok to say cuss words when you got mad at people. So when I was ridding in my mom's van with her a guy cut us off so I yelled at his car move f***head.

I used to think screw you was just like saying forget you in a different way. So when my mom where joking together in the car she kinda dissed me and I said screw you boy was I set straight. This happened when I was 11

I used to believe…

When I was about 6 I knew a mute girl at primary school. I used to believe that people had a limited number of words that they could pronounce in a lifetime and once you'd used them all up, then you became mute. From then on, I paid special attention not to waste words.

i used to be confused about people who grew up ijn a different country, learning to speak another language fluently to live in that country. I wondered if they were amoung english people whether they'd think in english, or their native language

I used to think the word "procrastinate" meant to put off going to the toilet. I couldn't work out why we needed a word to describe that - why didn't people just go to the toilet when the needed to go?

I used to believe…

My friend and I used to read Judy Blume books but we had a bit of trouble understanding some of the American expressions (we're English). First of all, lots of the girls had bangs - we had never heard of this before and thought that it meant big breasts. Secondly, they talked about cuticles - no idea what this meant but it sounded rude. We would have been so disappointed if we had only bothered to use a dictionary. (Actually I only found out about the bangs when I went to university!)

I used to believe…

until today, while reading a psych book, i found out ive been saying "disconserting" with an N making it "disconcerning" my whole life....im 20.

I used to believe…

.. that 'approximate' meant precisely, until I was 22 yrs when I was arguing with my friends about what it meant. Had to look in the dictionary to make sure after believing it for so many yrs.

I used to believe…

When I was about 5 my family went to Puerto Rico where they speak Spanish. I saw these signs that said "No Fumes" everywhere. I though this was short for perfumes and women there weren't allowed to wear it.
It wasn't until I learned Spanish that I realized it was simply Spanish for "No smoking"(pronounced no foo-mace)

I used to think that certain quantitative words had numbers assigned to them. If 'a couple' was two, 'a few' was three and 'a lot' was four. Naturally, 'several' was seven. I still adhere loosely to this hierarchy of counting.

i used to belive that in everyones head they understood english, like if they heard a different launguage and inside their head they changed it to english to understand it, thusfor all other languages were just made to confuse people, and i thought that i was super lucky to understand and speak english. my mum never did get why i kept asking "why is it that people have to speak other languages when brains speak english??" to this day she doesn't understand it.

I used to believe…

When I was about 5 or 6 I was really unaware of what exactly people were saying when they said "suit yourself". I believed that the correct way to say such a thing was "shoot yourself". So whenever my chums didn't want to do what I wanted to it was always "shoot yourself" that came out of my little mouth.

I used to believe…

When me and my sister were about six and seven, we would "write cursive." Mind you, we had just begun learning how to write cursive in school. I remember writing ynynyn over and over in cursive, breaking it up into sentences and paragraphs. Thinking that whomever was reading it would know what it meant. Cause after all, that was how you wrote cursive.

I used to believe…

when i was at recess in first grade a girl told me that if you flip someone off it means you dont realy like them so i went up to a girl on the teeter-totter and flipped her off! she oviesly knew what it ment and told on me! all the teaches did was make me sit down on this red line for 5 minutes! lol

I used to believe…

up till i was about 15 i didnt realize that several just ment a few of the items chosen i thought it ment that i had to get seven of them. Its very logical in my thinking because 'seve'ral has the begining of seven in it. I was still embarassed.

ps. i am now 16 and every time i hear several i think of the day i learned it wasnt seven.