reading

When I was 8... I read the book Fantastic Beasts and where to find them, which is written as part of the harry potter books.

I read the entry about a Letifold which the book said was a big black blanket-like animal that slithered under the door and ate people. I made my parents keep my bed facing the door so i could always see if there was one crawling in. Then I read the book again and noticed that it said they could only be found in tropical areas. So i was safe.

Then my parents made me go on vacation to Hawaii. I cried myself to sleep because I was so scared. After we went home my parents managed to convince me there was no such thing.

harry potter obsessee

At around the age of 7-9 I somehow came to the belief that the abbreviation "lb." for pound was actually an abbreviation for the unit of measure "lillebeeter". Perhaps I'd mis-heard the word "millimeter", which was still a relative rarity in 70's Canada?

michael

When I was 6 or so, I'd both heard the word 'ceramic', referring to figurines, for instance, and I'd read it in books. But somehow I never made the connection that they were the same thing, and I thought the written word was pronounced 'creamic'.

Ryan

My 4 year old sister was learning to read when I explained to her the sound of the "a" in the word "about" was pronounced with the "schwa." She looked at me funny. I said, "Sound it out." She read very slowly, "Schwaaaabout."

Kristin

I used to believe that "G" was a vowel. As far as i was concerned, vowels were letters that could make two noises. At that time, i thought they were just called the two-soundy-letters. I first found this out at the age of 6 and believed it until first grade. I was sad when i found out it wasnt.

G aint a vowel!!!

I believed the book Babar was how my name was spelled.

Barbara

I must have read a lot of mysteries as a child, because I remember thinking that the word "indict" was pronounced "in-dikt." At the same time, I heard the correct pronounciation, "in-dite," on Perry Mason or other such TV shows. Although I understood them both to mean the same thing, it wasn't until years later that something clicked in my head and I realized they were exactly the same word.

Michele

When I was little, me and my mom went to the Library. They have those computers where you look up books right in the middle. We both went to them, because I liked looking up stuff about dogs and whatnot. But, what my mom was looking up looked much more interesting. So, I went over to her computer and started reading aloud what it said. "Pubert..." and that's as far as I got. I was convinced for years that Puberty was the brother of Rupert. (You know, from that cartoon about the bear that went on adventures)

Sarah

I used to believe if you read a book in the dark, you would go blind.

Ellen

When I reached the third grade, my family moved to a different state and, threfore, I had to attend a different school. It was larger than my old school, so it was already intimidating. The first day, as I was walking down the hall, I saw a sign that said "Walk on the right side of the hall." I thought it meant walk on the 'correct' side of the hall. I was so scared, because nobody had told me what the correct side was.

pastrami

When I read the phrase "under fire," I thought that "under fire" means there's something burning below us like the White House, ground, etc.

Anon

When was 6-7 i wasn,t very good at reading big words, and every evening i would sit with my Dad and read to him out of the newspaper, and when i came to a word i couldn,t say, he told me to say Wheelbarrow, and one friday in school we always had reading out load, so when i was asked to read , i kept saying wheelbarrow when i came to a word i didn,t know, so after a while the teacher said Janice why do you keep saying wheelbarrow, and i told her my Dad told me i could always say that word if i came across a word i could not read.


Sadly my Dad died when i was 9years old but i shall never forget my time spent with him while he lay in bed.

Janice Owen

i used to believe that 'island' was pronounced 'is-land' instead. I know im not alone on that one! :)

Da KornMeal

When I was younger, I noticed there was a spot on certain forms that said "Sex: -Male -Female" I used to think that I had to mark off which I preferred sex from. It scared me...

Alias