reading
Show most recent or highest rated first.page 10 of 16
< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 >
top belief!
Before i had learned how to read and write, I thought that the grown-ups weren't actually writing (i mean handwriting), they were just fooling around and scribbling weird stuff on paper. Therefore, I was convinced that I could "write" as well, so ever time I got my hands on a pen and a piece of paper(including newspapers, books etc.) I just scribbled it to death. That drove my grandparents crazy, especially since I ruined a few rare and expensive books.
I used to believe that the word sickle was short for popsicle. "He cut the grass with a sickle," would mean a guy cut some grass eating a popsicle - like on a hot day perhaps? Made sense to me at the time.
When I was little I never understood why adults liked to read. I thought that all the read were information books or dictionary/thesaurus... I never knew they actually had fiction books! Not until I was about 10!
top belief!
My parents had a lot of self-help, how-to, historical, and factual books when I was a kid. I used to think that authors didn't write stories for adults, and that when I grew up, I'd have to read boring stuff about gardening and wars.
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!!!!
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?
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.
top belief!
Up to being 18, if I was reading a particularly scary book, when I put it down I couldn't leave it open at the page I was on, I had to shut it and use a bookmark. This was in case anything got out of it and came to get me.
Also, I couldn't leave it face up, with the picture on the front looking at me.
There was a Chinese takeaway near us called the Orient Express. I thought it was Onion Press. Yeah.
top belief!
I used to believe that the sign "in case of fire, do not use elevator" was meant to be proactive. I read it as "you shouldn't use elevators, because someday, there might be a fire." It never stopped me from using elevators, but I remember being puzzled by the sign.
When I was in third grade, and I had my cousins visiting us, and my oldest cousin, who was 12, told me that The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien would be too hard for me to read.(I was a very good reader.)My retort was that I had read Harry Potter books. I thought if you had read Harry Potter, you could read anything. Amazingly, after my cousins were gone,I read The Hobbit.
When I was seven years old, I used to believe if you closed a magazine and left it alone for a few days, all of the pictures inside would change to new ones. I have no idea why . . .
top belief!
When I was a kid in New Hampshire, I used to believe that the state motto (which was on all the license plats), "Live Free or Die" was not a statement of resolve, but an enforced requirement. I spent some time concerned that I might not be living free enough.
I used to think (for an embarrassingly long time!)that FAQ meant For Any Questions, because that was what people said they would leave time for at the end of a presentation.
top belief!
One time in Elementary school I was playing ball against the wall and got hit in the eye with a tennis ball. My mom had taken me to the doctor's and he put me in front of an eye chart and asked me to read what was in front of me. He started at the smallest row, I couldn't read anything. As he moved up I kept telling him I couldn't read what was on the line. My mom started to get nervous. My doctor then said "Can't you see any of the letters?" in which I replied "I can read them but I don't know what they're spelling!" (Hey, i was young, no one told me I was supose to say each letter out loud - I thought a worrd was being spelled!)
When I was about 6 years old, me and my younger brother found the "Lord of the rings" book in my parents bedroom,it was the biggest book we had ever seen, except for the bible, so we thought it was the opposite,the Devil's book, so we hid it under the book shelf, unluckily, it was a library book...
When I was young, before I knew my ABC's, I didn't understand how it was possible to read without speaking the words out loud. I thought my Mom was being silly when she would read to herself because I believed she was just staring at the page and pretending that she was somehow absorting the content.
When I first encountered "lb.", I had no concept of abbreviations and would read it aloud, "lib". So Dick and Jane would go to the store to get two libs of butter...
I used to think that the "rod" in a "Rod and Gun Club" was the tamping rod used to push everything down the barrel. I thought that people in these clubs only fired old fashioned muskets.
I was broken hearted when I read a chalk message outside my friend Dorelle's house that said "Went Private". I stood outside in the street and shouted her name, because I didn't dare go onto her property, but she didn't come out. Deeply distraught, I ran home and fetched my dad who explained that the message was "Wet Paint", and I could still go and call on Dorelle, so long as I didn't lean up against the painty fence.
I Used To Believe™ © 2002 - 2023 Mat Connolley, another Iteracy website. privacy policy