language

I used to believe…

Everybody described the conscience as a "little voice in your head", so I thought that *all* thoughts were from the conscience-- essentially, I mixed the conscience up with the internal monologue.

I had (and still have) a lot of random thoughts, and when I was a kid, I was often told that I was very well-mannered for my age, so I thought that because I was so polite, my conscience was "bored" and just said random stuff.

I used to get "jaw" confused with "palm."

I used to believe…

When I was about twelve or thirteen, my mother was reading me The Odyssey, and at one point, Queen Penelope has these men who want to marry her because they think Odysseus is dead, and they say, "We'll draw lots". I didn't know what that meant, so I thought it meant they'd draw (as in sketch) a lot of Odysseuses.

I used to think that clinical depression was called "cynical" depression.

I thought "unrest" was the opposite of rest. And, since I hated resting, I thought it was a good thing.
I also thought "uneasy" meant "hard" or "difficult".

I forgot the expression "not cricket", so I said, "not tennis" instead.

I thought Gaston from Beauty and the Beast was a bad guy because his name had "gas" in it and that was a 'bad word.'

I learned about opposites from Sesame Street and naturally assumed EVERYTHING in the world had to have an opposite. Spanish was the opposite of English, the sun was the opposite of the moon, candy was the opposite of vegetables, recess was the opposite of classtime, rollerblades were the opposite of bicycles, and cats were the opposite of dogs.

I mixed "confidence" up with "competence" so when I was watching an episode of a kids' show that involved the idea of "losing your confidence", I was like, "But she didn't lose her confidence! She's still good at it, just too nervous to actually do it."

I used to believe…

When I was little I thought it was literally possible to "waste your breath". Like, you could actually talk too much and would not have any air left for speaking, and you'd not be able to talk again for the rest of your life.

I used to believe…

When I was little I believed that people who spoke a foreign language were translating to and from English in their minds.

I had these pajamas that were too loose for me and my mother called them "loosies" but I thought she was saying "Lucy's" and the reason they were too big was because they were meant for someone named Lucy, not me.

I thought that people only said, "Guess what?!" when delivering good news. So when Dad said, "Hey, guess what?! Eva broke her arm!!" (Eva is my friend and she's OK now, this was years ago), I was shocked at him and wondered why he thought it was good news that my friend broke her arm.

I used to believe…

For a while I believed that saliva was a naughty word to say, because it seemed like a private bodily fluid that you should not mention in public.

I thought that when people talked about skyscrapers they were referring to the jet airliners that I had always seen flying overhead leaving behind them white scrape marks on the sky. My brother corrected me one day when I pointed up and said, "Look, there goes a skyscraper." After he told me that it really meant a super tall building I thought that was absurd, because a tall building doesn't leave a scrape mark!

I used to believe that all singers had to write their own lyrics and that if their language skills were not perfect, the mistakes would remain in the song.

English is not my mother tongue, and growing up I learned a lot of English from songs. But I was always a bit wary of songs by non-native English groups and singers. I was afraid that they had made mistakes (not knowing English perfectly) and that I'd acquire their mistakes.