language: speaking

My Mom always used the phrase "For all intensive purposes" when I was growing up, and (of course) I picked it up too. When I was around 25 years old or so, I learned the correct phrase is "For all intents and purposes". I thought, wow, Mom's been saying it wrong all these years, but I never said anything to her about it. About 5 years later, she was watching Wheel of Fortune, and the puzzle solution was "For all intents and purposes". She said,"Heh! Well I'll be damned! I've been saying it wrong for all these years! " She was around 60 at the time.

When I was 4 I was very angry at my older brother and told my mom that i was "Happy as a Clown" until he hit me, she laughed and said it was "Happy as a Clam" i got angry and asked "Why would a Clam be happy?"

For the longest time, I thought "granite" was the same word as "granted", so I thought that when somebody was "taking you for granted" it meant that you were going with them to collect rocks in the forest or something.

When I was younger, I knew nothing about accents and thought that when someone talked with one, they had gotten into a car accident. One day when my mom's friend who had an accent came over, I said to her "I'm sorry about your accident, but I like your voice!"

When I first heard the phrase "survival of the fittest," (probably around age 7 or 8) I had no idea what the word "fittest" meant and believed that people really meant "fattest"! ^_^

When I was about 8 years old, I overheard my family talking about the increase in numbers of Lebanese immigrating to South Africa. Somewhere along the line I also hear the word Lesbian.

Not knowing the meaning of either word, I told classmates at school that one of my older brother's friends (a man) was a Lesbian. Got into real trouble at home when the school queried my conversation.

Before I had started kindergarden, when it was saturday my parents were happy because it was "the weekend, baby" it was also what a dj would say on the radio, so i thought that the weekend was called "the weekend, baby"
Well, when i started school, we were learning the days of the week and when my teacher asked what the days saturday and sunday were called i answered with a smile and said expressively, like a song "Its the weekend BABY" i wondered why everyone laughed, and for the longest time "the weekend" seemed to plain of a word :P

When I was 8 or 9 there was a very unpleasant girl in my class. She was on my bus and lived at a place called "____ Manor," so I thought that's where they sent the really bad kids to learn their "manners." Every time my parents yelled at me for misbehaving, I thought that they didn't realize how fortunate they were to have me: at least I wasn't so nasty that I had to be sent to a manor!

When I was little I couldn't pronounce tr's and they came out like an f. So when we were moving, I saw the moving truck and was like "look at the big fuck!" My grandmother thought it was hilarious and so every time we saw a truck she would ask me what it was and meaning to say truck, I would say fuck.

When my uncle got "ten-year" (tenure!) at the university, I thought he had a job for 10 years, so I wondered why his position was secure for life (and why they didn't call it something more accurate!)

I used to think tardy meant that you're being a r e t a r d then one day the teacher said that I was tardy and the teacher explained it to me

For a while I believed that saliva was a naughty word to say, because it seemed like a private bodily fluid that you should not mention in public.

My freshman year at Georgia Tech there was a celebrity basketball
game between the Playboy Bunnies and the school's coaches.
After the game the bunnies were chatting with the huge crowd of
young men; some sitting on other's shoulders to see better. One
such fellow, being overwhelmed by thier sexyness, I presume,
bellowed out "I think I'm going to have an organism".

My Dad would always say 'well cut my sock'if I or any other family members told him anything interesting or remarkable. I was 25 when I realised his favourite expression was actually a spoonerism for 'suck my cock'. Oh the long lost innocence of youth.

My friend used to believe that the phrase "missed by a hairs bredth" was really "missed by a Hares breath". To explain this he said " A hare was crossing the road when a car just missed it." The Hare said,"Phew that was close" Thus the hares breath.

when i was little, my big sister convinced me that she had invented and patented the word "wow" and that i was not allowed to say it.