reading

As a young reader with limited travel
exposure, I read James Michener's, HAWAII without understanding Hawaiian pronunciation. I, therefore, thought the kings name Kamehameha was pronounced Kah Me Hah Me Hah
rather than Kuh May Uh May Uh as I later discovered. Then miraculously I became aware that I already knew his name.

Anon

i used to be a bit of a pretensious kid when i was younger, and thought one day that i'd give reading 'don quixote' a go. unsurprisingly i gave up shortly after, but it wasn't until years later that i found out the book wasn't about a bloke called 'don' whose second name was pronounced 'quick-sote'. genius.

anon

I could never figure out what No unauthorised entry" signs meant, as I thought unauthorised was una-thor-sized. I was about 19 years old before I heard someone read one of these signs out loud and realised my mistake.
And there was a magazine that we used to get that would say on the cover "full story on centre pages", I thought it said "certain" pages and would spend ages flicking through the mage looking for the certain pages that the story was on!

Lobelia Overhill

I used to stop breathing. You know how you dont consciously breathe? Id be engorssed in a book (i love reading), and suddenly, id stop because there would be a sound missing. Then, id notice i wasnt breathing, take a deep breath, and carry on again. It was weird, because to test that it wasnt my imagination, after that happened once, i consciously held my breath for 7 minutes (best otherwise is 2:32). After wards, i was convinced that when i read a book my soul was sucked into it to talk to the charcters, adn my body got left behind, and kinda forgot to carry on working.

Sam

i used to believe if i kick the books GOD will pick my eyes.

Anon

As a child my reading vocabulary was much larger than my spoken vocabulary. As a result, for years, I thought that 'Yosemite Sam" was prounounced with two syllables, a long O AND a long I sound (yOse - mIte). Imagine my surprise when I first heard somebody prounounce Yo-seh-mih-tee!

Not as bright as I thought I was

I used to believe that the people on magazines and books could see you. (waayy before the Harry Potter moving picture thing) So when in the loo I'd have to turn the faces over or put them in a cupboard so they couldn't see me using the toilet.

28 and still strange

As a child, I was a voracious reader. Unfortunately, I didn't read aloud to anyone to correct my pronunciation. For years, I thought the word "awry" was pronounced "ow-ree". Hearing the word "awry" in conversation did nothing to dispel this belief. I jsut assumed they were two separate words.

Ian

I used to believe that photos of people in magazines or books, if they were looking straight at you from the photo; then they could REALLY see you and everything you were doing. It still creeps me out to this day, a little.

Maggie, NJ

Here in Norway, we have a weekly magazine with Disney comics, called "Donald Duck & Co." When I was a kid, maybe about 8 years old, I used to read it every week. Then, my older sister told me that Donald Duck was dead, and they therefore had ended publishing the magazine. I actually believed her, and started crying!

Anon

I used to believe that dangerous was pronounced dangaroos. When I seen the sign 'these animals are dangerous' I believed it meant something similar to these animals are mammals.

Cherise

Used to go around my school classes and brag to people that I read "War and Peace" (being of course famous or infamous for its horrendous length). It was a lie... and I know I was just a kid, but I guess I didn't realize it was such a LAME thing to brag about.

ME: "I read War and Peace!"
THEM: "Nice, want to play Legos?"
ME: "I READ all of it! War and Peace!"
THEM: "Uh, okay. Cards?"
ME: "Tolstoy is cool, WAR!"
THEM: "Okay, you nerd."
ME: "And PEACE!"
THEM: *goes away*
ME: "I think I shall read it again!"

You may have, by now, gauged my level of popularity back then.

Ashton Sanderson

In elementary school, I was smart and skipped a grade in reading, spelling and grammar classes. I read all the time. My favorite books were the Ramona Quimby series.

Despite my intelligence, I read the entire series (probably 10+ books) thinking that Ramona's sister's name was pronounced "Beat Rice."

My mother finally punctured this delusion during a discussion of a book in the sixth grade. Beatrice... Beatrice... OH...Now I see.

Turtle

I am 13 years old and I remember when I was learning to read I thought that everyone was making the words up and it was one big practicle joke to try to convince me into beliving them and that the letters were just squiggles that everyone said were letters. When I refused to listen to my teacher in Kindergarden and told her that she was lieing about the letters and words then as I procided to throw a tamtrum I was sent early for nap time so she wouldn't have to put up with me. I WAS AN ODD CHILD...

Sarah

My mother has told me about a time when I was just starting to figure out that letters made words. She said that one time she saw me pointing to the word on the back of the toliet and I said, "E-L-G-E-R. Potty!" I thought Elger (the name of the toliet manufacturer, spelled potty.

Kristie

when i was younger i used to love Andy Pandy books.i dont know why but i always thought that Andy Pandy was in fact a girl (maybe had to do with the fact that Andy Pandy did in fact look like and act like a girl..Deffinantley had a very feminine look...Pretty face and rosy cheehks).I Cant remember who his girlfriend was,Polly or something like that.Well anyway i would spend hours thinking that whow could polly be Andys girlfriend as they were both girls....Imagine what its like to be about 4-5 and trying to understand what lesbians were.It was all really weird and muy mom and dad found it all rather funny

I also used to think that women couldnt get pregnant until they were married.And that the moment they were married they were pregnant and 9months later would have a child...hahahah to that thought

joanna

When I was 3 or 4 we owned a copy of a magazine with an article I looked at
repeatedly. The back cover got torn at some point, and one of my parents taped
it back together. Later, I saw the issue intact, with no tape and I concluded that
the magazine had healed. As an adult I realized that we must have had two
copies of the magazine.

Paul S.