language: speaking

i never knew how my mum and dad spoke to each other i thought they spoke alien until my mother exclaimed it was called languges now i know three english ,german and chinese

one time when i was like 5, my grandma told me she wanted to take me to a ballet sometime. but my dad said, "no, you don't want to go to a stinky ballet. you want to go to a monster truck rally! those are awesome!" and my grandma said, "don't brainwash the girl", and i thought it literally meant sticking my head in a tub full of soap and water, and scrubbing my whole head, until the soap got in my ears and washed out my brain. i was sooo scared of that concept for the longest time.

Not one of my own, but...

Some friends of mine had their 4-year-old son tell them that he thought their cat was "a good looker". They wondered where he had picked up this expression. But it turned out to be something he'd just made up, and all he meant was that the cat was very observant.

Living in the UK during the 70's and 80's I used to get really upset 'cos so many people were losing their jobs as plants and factories were closed down. I even asked my mother why didn't they just move to that town where there were loads of jobs. Following a rather blank look, she asked what I meant. "Well" I replied, "The man on the news said there were thousands of jobs in Jeopardy"

When I was little, I played a video game called "The Legend of Zelda" in which the hero must rescue the kidnapped Princess Zelda. From that I divined that this new word "legend" meant that someone was kidnapped and you had to save them; I thought that a game called "The Legend of Your Pets" would be pretty fun.

(Eventually in school they taught me that a "legend" was something found on a map. This didn't help.)

Every year the older kids in my school would give a little play, and all the younger kids would come in and watch. Well, the teacher called it a matennae (sp?) and i thought that she said Matt & A. Like the name of the show was that, and Matt & A (like for Amanda or Amy) were the stars. I was so excited, because i knew a boy named matt, who was older. My name starts with an A and i was hoping that they would have the same play later when i was older so i could be the A in Matt & A. He wasn't even in the play!! I was so confused. I didn't figure it out for 5 years what a matennae was

I always wondered where all the words and their meanings originated from, and I decided that at the beginning of time, there was a big table of old wise men with long white beards, and they all discussed certain sounds and decided to give them meanings, for example, "PEN-CIL" would mean that pointy skinny stick that you write with.

Not my belief, but my brother's. When he was around 12 and I 14, the subject of foreign accents came up in a discussion. At one point, I mentioned American accents. (We're American.) He looked confused, and said... "What? Americans don't HAVE an accent."

He had been assuming that people from England, Australia, etc. had to go out of their way to talk like that, and that the American accent was just the normal default way of talking.

I used to believe "foyer" meant fireplace because is german feuer [pronounced like foyer] means fire.
I never heard anyone say foyer before, until i was at my grandmas house once. She told me to go wait in the ''foyer'', and i had no idea what she was talking about. I thought she wanted me to wait in the fireplace!!

When I was young I used to think a prostitue was someone that gives you good deals, when I was out shopping I got alot of candy for a sweet deal and turned round to the man and said "Your the best Prostitute ever!" As I left the shop many people looked at me...

I used to think that an episode was an episoda, and that it was a kind of soda that made you sick when you drank it (epi meaning EPIdemic). I got upset when somebody was talking about that funny episode of Spongebob, thinking that they were jerks to think that Spongebob with a disease was funny.

I got the word hobo confused with homo. So one night years ago, my family and I were walking out of a restaurant, and my dad said "Let's walk the other way, there's a hobo asking people up the street for money". I yelled "Where's the homo? I want to see him! Why don't you like homos dad!?". Haha, I look back and laugh.

When I was in kindergarten the teacher would tell us to "make sure to color inside the lines" but until I was in about 2nd grade I always thought she said "color inside the lions." I was always very confused, where were the lions?! Coloring was a tad scary for me then...I thought a lion would pop out.

When I was in 2rd grade a few friends and myself were stopped by a group of 6th graders and asked if we were homosexual or heterosexual. When my friends looked ro me for an answer I replied, homosexual because I figured 'home' is a good place to be.

When I was young & we said the pledge of allegiance in school I always thought that was "and to the republice for witched stance". I was so relieved when I finally realized that it was "for which it stands". It just made so much more sense!

I used to believe that "boots" were actually called "boots on". This was because whenever it was time to go outside, my parents would tell me, "get your boots on!".
Because of this, whenever I wanted to take them off, I would tell my parents that I wanted my boots on off.

When i was about 5 i was watching an old movie on tv where a lady was yelling at a guy, saying he should be ashamed of himself for "robbing a young woman of her virtue". I knew what robbing meant- taking something away. But what was a virtue? I asked my mom who as i recall was scrubbing the bathtub. "Patience is a virtue" she mumbled. So i assumed that "robbing someone of their virtue" meant making them lord their patience. Fast forward to the next day. I'm in the cart at the grocery store watching my Milky Way candy bar creep slowly down the conveyor belt. "Mom, can i have my candy now?" I asked. But she insisted i wait until we left the store. I sighed loudly and declared, "Mom, you are ROBBING ME OF MY VIRTUE!" She turned 7 shades of red and rushed of out of the store. It wasn't until a good 10 years later when i say that movie again that i understood what the phrase meant.