language

I used to believe…

my friend from grammer school thought that to kill a mocking bird was actually about killing a mockingbird, sadly enough i didnt really know what the book was about either, and we were in the eight grade!!!!

I used to believe…

When i was younger i used to believe that when people spoke a foriegn language it was just like they were speaking english to each other, and that if we had subtittles for a forieng language the n they would too...cause they were talking in english to each other...

I used to believe…

My mom used to act out the one-person, "You must pay the rent!" scene for my sister and me. It's the one where a comb or similar object is used to signify when the person is playing either the landlord, woman, or hero. Well, it always ends with the landlord saying, "Curses! Foiled again!" For the longest time I believed the phrase was, "Purses, boiled again!!" This would always conjure images in my head of a bunch of purses sitting in a huge pot of boiling water. I wasn't sure why purses being boiled was a bad thing to have happen to you, but I had no reason to question it. Eventually I repeated the phrase in front of my mother one day and she had a pretty good laugh before correcting me.

I used to believe…

My sister and her friend used to believe that there was no such thing as the language 'English', they thought they spoke 'American' and 'English' was some kind of gibberish.

I didn't realize that the word my grandmother used when referring to my "girl parts" was truly a dirty word. I thought it was a word she made up, she never cussed, so it must be okay. When in college and discussing funny names for body parts, I spoke up and said "My grandmother always called it a twat!".

I used to believe that when adults sat around talking, they just chose random words to say. I often wondered how they could sit around doing something so boring for so long.

I used to believe…

When I was a toddler, I had lots of toddler friends who were non-English speakers, but I had no concept of different languages and just thought that they had their own words for things. We all just spoke our own language and listened in eachother's languages. I understood "pass the red crayon" in three languages and had no idea I had language skills.

I used to believe…

When I was 8 we moved to England from South Africa. I thought since we all spoke English, I'd be fine... right up until I told a kid in my class that I lived "down that road, past the robots and turn right". A stressful few minutes passed before I figured out that "robots" were called "traffic lights" in England. For years afterwards I was on edge, wondering what apparently-harmless-in-South-Africa/ hilarious-in-England word would get me laughed at next.

I used to believe…

Like many other kids, I used to think l-m-n-o was one word. Then I heard the word "element" and thought that it was "element o p". I was not the smartest cookie.

I used to believe…

my parents belived in teaching me good grammer. So they told me that arn't is a bad word. So when ever a kid said it I would tell the teacher. My parents thought it was funny.

i used to think "Es Cahr Gho" (or howevery you spell it) Meant The Car Goes.... Since I had heard my siblings learning spanish, some of the words sounded like ours... so putting two and two together ... ah whatever you know what i mean

I used to believe…

When I was about 9 or 10 I was very into reading the dictionary - my brother (5 years older) must have thought this was kind of geeky and asked me, very seriously, if I knew that the word 'gullible' wasn't in the dictionary - you can see what's coming next can't you?

I used to believe…

When i was 9 i didnt know what a blow job was. We were doing this science experiment in school (cant remember what it was now, but something to do with balloons) and our teacher had let us come up with our own titles for it. In discussion, a lad at my table suggested i call it " A Blow-Job" - well i thought this was fantastic and proudly wrote it down and went to show it to the teacher thinking she'd really praise me. Instead she laughed at me and told my mother!

I used to believe…

When my parents argued they would accidentally say "God-d***-it!" and I would immediately envision God building a dam in the "River of problems" so that they would stop flowing.

I was born and raised in NY, as were my parents. My teacher taught us colors in pre-school, and we had just learned "orange", and my teacher pronounced it "ohr-ange." Everytime I would say the word, my mom would correct me and say "ahr-ange." I finally concluded in my little mind that there must be a difference in pronunciation of the color and the fruit, but I didn't know which was which!!! So if I was ever asked to identify either, I would mumble the word because I wasn't sure if I was saying it right.

I used to believe…

From when my parents divorced was when I was able to read with some understanding. This was around the age of 6/7. My parents would send eachother Christmas cards saying Happy 'Xmas' to eachother. I thought that Xmas was a christmas word that ex boyfriends/girlfriends husbands/wives said to eachother.

I used to believe…

My godson has is absoutly in love with all trucks. Unfortunatly he does not get the "tr" in there so it comes out f*ck. I could have dies when he yelled "Holy Cow big f*ck"

I always thought that if someone was said to be 'outspoken' that it meant that they were out-spoken, in the same sense as someone can be out-done; that they couldn't get a word in edge ways cos everyone would 'out-speak' them.