speaking

My grandmother used expressions such as "Hold your tounge" and "Keep your shirt on."

I remember holding my tounge for about 5 minutes before I asked if I could stop.
Or holding down my shirt incase it accidently flew off.

Anon

When I learned that a piece of glass that you look through was called a window, I naturally assumed that a piece of glass you see your reflection in was called a mirrow. It never made sense to me that the words for such similar things had different endings. Still doesn't.

Lee

I used to believe that breaking up with a girlfriend or boyfriend meant you had to go to a place where u layed down and they took a hammer and u shattered to pieces

Morgan

In my grade 1 class there was a girl who needed speech lessons because of a lisp. One day I heard the term "voice box" and put together the idea that the doctor was shoving a shoe box down her throat, and it scared me. I asked her if she wanted one of my shoe boxes because my feet were small.

Mangopeel

When I was little, I still mixed up my words.

One day, I walked up to someone and said, "Hello! I'm a terrorist!" ...I meant "tourist"! OH I was wrong!!! lol

Rebecca Sears

i used to believe the proverbial "straw that broke the camels back" was a drinking straw. sadly, i was 23.

jennie kay

When I was young, for some reason I was absolutely terrified of saying the word "please." My parents were always telling me that it was rude not to say please when you're asking for something, but somehow this only made me more scared. I still don't know what I was so frightened of.

Evilrabbit

I used to think the term "breaking a record" literally meant you took a record(the kind that plays music) and broke it in half. I didnt understand why it really mattered when people did it and why they got famouse for it. I also thought that in the Guinness Book of World Records, guinness was an adjective descibing how great the broken records were or something. It was all very confusing. Im still not really sure if guinness is a name or what. I sure am smart.

Anon

I thought that people who couldn't hear were called "death" people and that was not a very nice name for them. They couldn't hear, but they certainly weren't dead!

Anon

I used to believe that the term "thing" referred not to any kind of object, but to a specific one which for some reason looked like a reddish, deflated balloon(especially in the context of "poor thing"). And when I heard the term "wits", as in "I've lost my wits" I pictured these as white plastic button-like objects.

Emily

My mother used to tell me to never spit in front of women. She was trying to teach me to be a gentleman, but I took her literally. From then on, I spat only BEHIND women. One day, as we were walking through the mall parking lot, I spit on the ground. My mother scolded me to "Never spit in front of women". So I spit behind her. She thought I was being a smarta$$, and she slapped me silly.

Nathan

As an African from an English colony,I used to believe that all white people spoke English.Really.So when I saw a white person,I would say,"there goes another 'England man'"
I never imagined I would grow up speaking English far more better than millions of white people.

no name

i used to believe that the expression "know it like the back of my hand" was "know it like the back of my head," until my uncle asked me how well i knew the back of my head. i told him, not very well, and that i never did understand the expression.

jeri

I used to think the word "eavesdrop" was "ease drop," as in, you could overhear what people were saying because it was easy.

Jay

I thought "birthday" was actually "Bert day" to celebrate Bert from Bert and Ernie. My mom must have thought I was just mispronouncing it because she didn't correct me until I was about 7 years old, at which point she had to explain to me what a birthday was.

Cake for Bert

I used to pronounce the word 'nuclear' like 'nuke-yuh-lar.' My parents and brother told me that George Bush pronounced the word 'nuclear' wrong, but when people told me how he said it, I couldn't hear the difference. I assumed I was saying it correctly, though. One day my brother noticed how I said it and told me I said it like George Bush. I felt terribly stupid, but I still couldn't hear the difference, so I tried not to say the word. Finally, a friend of mine helped me say it right, "Say new. Now say clear. Now say new-clear."

Anon

As a little kid I used to think that gazebos were called "Azibos"(like the character Azibo from Panwapa).

I never saw the word "gazebo" spelled out so the first time i did, I thought it was pronounced "gayz bo" and that it was a separate word from "Azibo", until i tried to draw a picture of one and spell the word below it.

Rachel

I found the term "mad scientist" confusing, as I didn't know that "mad" could also mean crazy, so I was left wondering what all these scientists were so pissed off about.

lyot

when I was very little and I did something I thought was particularly clever my brother used to say very quickly; 'What do you want a medal or a chest to put it on' I thought he was saying 'chester pudding' and eventually asked my mother what one of these was.

Kerray

I was a very quiet child. That's because I believed I would wear out my vocal cords whenever I talked and I had to save them for when I was older.

Bel Seslaf, Brazil