language: reading

when i was little in my town there is an auto repair place and it had the words "new brakes" written on a neon sign outside the letters b and r were out though (so it said ake) for some reason i always thought it said "new cakes" i could never figure out why men who fix cars had a sign for cake outside i thought it said new cakes til i was maybe 9

When I first started reading, I eventually came across names like Mr. Jones and Mrs. Smith and whatnot. But my little mind didn't fully understand the concept of abbreviations and thought Mr. was pronounced Mer and Mrs. was pronounced Mers.

When I was young I thought that the "Danger: High Voltage" signs meant that there was voltage at a taller altitude, not that the voltage was strong. There was a utility pole in our yard so it made since until I saw a ground box and thought "Well, that voltage isn't very high?"

i learned to read at a pretty young age, but wasn't great at speed reading when i was little. when we drove past the signs that say "adopt a highway litter control," i always read "adopt a highway little girl," and spent hours wondering where these girls came from and why there were no boys.

it made me happy to see a sponsor on there :)

When I was little, I had a foreign nanny that would always tell me something that sounded like "com kweet". I never learned what it meant, but I somehow came up with the idea that you had to say it after every sentence when you read aloud.

So, when I'd read a book for my mom and grandma, it sounded something like this: "The dog climbed up the hill, com kweet. It made him very tired, com kweet..."

i used to get 'prosecuted' and 'persecuted' mixed up all the time, so i figured the signs in stores that said "shoplifters will be prosecuted" meant the store owner was going to take anyone he found stealing stuff out back and shoot him!

In the early 1950's long before we had a TV, I would read my older brother's comic books, and I thought Yosemite Sam was pronounced yose mite. I was a teenager before I heard it said correctly.

One time when I was younger my family went out to dinner at a restaurant right next to a store called David's Bridal (wedding store, obviously). I did not know what "Bridal" meant, but I did know that you put a "Bridle" on a horse when you wanted to ride it. So I concluded that David's Bridal must be a horse store. It didn't help that there was a large statue of a horse nearby.

We always passed an antique store on the way to my grandma's house. I always thought to myself, "What is an anti-q store and what in the world would they sell there?"

I saw the word "funeral" in writing before I'd ever heard the word or knew what a funeral was. I assumed it was something like a carnival since it started with the word "fun."

I used to believe that the notice "Case sensitive" when you put in a password on the computer meant that if I got it wrong, they'd take me to court. I'd always check twice before I logged in!

Once, while walking with my dog down the street I saw a sign I front of someone's house that said "Season's Greetings". I could'nt read very well at the time so I read it as "Satan's Greetings", I was so scared, we ran all the way home to frantically tell my mom. lol

When I was maybe 3, my family went to Disneyland. My sister's name is Adrienne, and we both got autograph books for the Disney charcters to sign. On the cover, it said "Autographs". I kept saying, "This isn't mine, it's Adrienne's, because it says her name on the front" Apparently I misread "Autographs" as my sister's name. The funny thing is, Now I am a very good reader and speller.

My parents both work in the medical field and there's this big book at home entitled "anatomy". Now, I thought my brother Anthony was named after that book, since my parents loved anatomy so much...

I used to mix up the words 'prosecuted' and 'executed.' Every time I saw a "violators will be prosecuted" sign, I made sure to be on my best behavior. I was absolutely terrified that my actions would result in death if I did something wrong.

Whenever I saw those signs that said "In case of fire, use stairs", I thought it was telling me to use the stairs just in case a fire randomly broke out. I thought it was a stupid sign. I later realized it was telling me to use the stairs if there was a fire.

When I was in 6th grade, learning about "organisms", every time I read out loud to my class, I would switch the word "organism" with the word "orgasm". I always knew it had some kind of sexual meaning but I was never really certain what it meant, so I did it to make it awkward for my teacher and classmates.

:]