speaking

When I was younger I thought that "exceptional" and "acceptable" meant the same thing, so when I was young and I tried really hard and the teacher whose class I got an A in their class (yes, I was young) said I was an "exceptional" student I was thinking he menat acceptable and wondered why getting an A was only acceptable and how much you'd have to do to get this teacher's respect.

Mamochan

When I was about 6 I knew a mute girl at primary school. I used to believe that people had a limited number of words that they could pronounce in a lifetime and once you'd used them all up, then you became mute. From then on, I paid special attention not to waste words.

Anon

I used to think the word "procrastinate" meant to put off going to the toilet. I couldn't work out why we needed a word to describe that - why didn't people just go to the toilet when the needed to go?

Angela

until today, while reading a psych book, i found out ive been saying "disconserting" with an N making it "disconcerning" my whole life....im 20.

Anon

.. that 'approximate' meant precisely, until I was 22 yrs when I was arguing with my friends about what it meant. Had to look in the dictionary to make sure after believing it for so many yrs.

Misconceptions, we have so many!

When I was about four I thought adults spoke a diferent language.

Amy

I was visiting my neice and she asked her mom why their dog was acting weird. Her mom told her that the dog was in heat. The next day I went over again and my niece opened the door and while waving her hand in front of her face like a fan siad, "I'm in heat, I'm sooo in heat." She thought "in heat" meant you were really hot.

StarDust

I used to belive that the word sexy (depending on your sex)
ment you were very girly/boyish.

MysticDarkness

As I was a quite chatty child (verbal-diarrohea) as my parents called it, I was told one day at about age six that you could only say 1000 words in your lifetime and then you wouldn't be able to talk anymore. I was fairly quiet for a short time after that!

Breezy

I once heard my dad say, "She doesn't waste words." and believed you could run out. I did not talk much after that.

Anon

I used to beleive that voting was vomiting and that when mum and dad said they were going to vote I would ask them if they were sick.

Georgia

I believed that certain words were pronounced one way when spoken and silently pronounced another way when read. For instance the nut "pecan" was pronounced with a short e in the first syllable and a an aah sound in the second one, but when read it was silently pronounced as pee-can. This is probably too complicated to explain but it was one of my rules.

Stephen

When i was little my mum used to say "i'm not jet-propelled, when we were asking for things, and i wondered who he was.

Je'prepelled (a super guy)

When I heard someone say, "mother-in-law", or "brother-in-law", etc. I thought they were talking about more than one person in general. I thought they were saying, "mother and all", or "brother and all", etc.

Anon

I used to believe the word(s?) 'make-believe' was supposed to be 'maple leaf'. I always said 'I watched my favorite cartoon today. But its just a maple leaf story'.

Kristina

i used to believe that when people said "pardon me" that they were actually saying "part of me". i could never figure out what that was supposed to mean.

♥

hahahah i am 15 years old, almost 16. my friend melanie is a little older than me, i believe she is 16.....she has always had the toughest time with words; not a really widespread vocabulary.

she calls me up the other day and tried to ask me for advice about something. and she said: "YOU KNOW, THIS WHOLE THING IS ASSINYING"

like ass-in-eye-ing. she got it mixed up with assinine. i guess she thought people were saying assinyin'. ahahaha

elle