speaking

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

When I was small I used to watch a lot of PBS shows, and at the end they always say, "This program was brought to you by..." and then list funders. They would always say that part really fast, so I thought that "broughtoyouby" was a single word. Never could figure out what it meant.

Anon

In first grade during a history class, I could not pronounce Virgina and West Virgina correctly. Instead I pronounced the female body part that begins with a V.

Most of us were ignorant of the word, but there were two kids in the class who actually knew what it meant, and couldn't resist giggling. My teacher corrected me, but a minute later I would mispronounce it again.

I went home and told my older that kids laughed at me when I was reading outloud during our history lessons. After some deciphering, my cousin told me what it meant. That moment of awareness was the most humiliating moment of my life.

Sal Mendez

Until I was around 15 I thought minestrone (soup) was pronounce MINE-strown.

My sister used to pronounce Jai'Alai (sport) like this: JAY-a-lay.

Guess it runs in the family...

Cathryn NY USA

i used to believe that when u have grown up u wuld be able to speak all langiages

neo

I would always get words mixed up, and two I still have problems with today are Mushroom and Marshmallow, and Sleeping Bag and Suitcase. I always need to think, Okay I need to pack my sleep...Suitcase.

ilia

When I was a kid, I somehow got it into my head that a “scone” was a type of a fish, a shellfish . . . some type of fish. How I got this into my head? . . . I don’t know. Maybe I got scone crossed up with schooner and transposed fishing or the sea with it. It could have been from me looking in my mother’s cookbook while she baked and seeing it grouped amongst other topics - Scallop, Scampi, Scones, Seafood - in their order. I don’t know!

Anyway, I believed it as FACT. And it never got challenged - for whatever reason, it just never came up in conversation. If I had heard it said in a sentence spoken during the course of time, fish may have worked in place of scone in my head, so it never got challenged that way, either. It wasn’t till an episode of ‘Friends’ was on TV, one night some years ago, they were talking about scones and I said something about a scone being a fish and my wife looked at me and said, “WHAT?”. I argued with her that a scone wasn’t some sort of pastry bread, roll thing - IT’S A FISH!

Obviously, I was wrong - but I wouldn’t give in until we got out the dictionary and I saw the proof opposing my error. My face was RED! But you know, I still tried to justify why I thought a scone was a fish - much like I did here! And I’ll go one step further and admit that there’s some weird part of me that still wants to believe a scone is a fish!

Wind Farm Horse

When I was in elementary school (I was about 9 or 10) I had the biggest crush on this boy in class. One day while playing in the room while my mom watched Cagney & Lacey, I heard the word "rape". I thought it was something a man did to a woman when he liked her...like kissing her. So a few days later when I was out playing with my girl friends I said, "I wish Matt S. would rape me. That would be so cool"....fortunately I was instantly bored with the word and never used it again.....years later I learned what it really meant and boy was I shocked and embarrassed.

Sherri

I used to watch 60 minutes and other news shows with my grandmother when I was little. I used to think Alzheimer's diease was called "Old Timers" diesease...it mad since because only OLD people got the dieasese!

CL

I use to think "Pardon me" was French for please excuse my Eiffel tower. makes no sense it just sounded french and that was all I knew about France the Eiffel tower

Brigit

I used to believed that "approximately" actually means "important".

Anon

I used to think that the baby slings were called carrions.

Anon

I used to confuse the words "dive" and "drown" for some reason. Once, me and my sister were swimming in a pool and I told my mom in a rather excited manner: Look, my sister is drowning!

Anonymous

i used to think that everyone talked like americans, that no one really had an accent - they were just talking funny to be amusing. i guess this all started when i heard the beatles sing on the radio, and then heard them talking to the interviewer or whatever - they sounded "american" when they sang, but not when they were just talking. yah, i was weird...

karen, nyc

You already have an entry about the word "misled" being misunderstood as a verb - to misle. I am so glad I am not the only one - for years I saw, read and pronounced the word misled as though it rhymed with 'rise'. It made perfect sense to me as a word that was something like 'weaseled'. Noone ever corrected me, but somehow I finally figured it out on my own - several years after graduating from college with both Bachelor's and Master's degrees (and one of those with a minor in English)!

Catte Nappe

Having been taught phonics in grade school, I believed I could sound out virtually any word. The Plymouth dealership sign across from my uncle's home made me think they must use plywood to make the front end.

Dr. Winkler

For a worryingly long time (until I was 15) I used to think specific was pronounced Pacific much to everyone’s amusement.

Amy

My friend told me she had invented the expression 'Gordon Bennett' and I believed her!

SueE

A friend of mine got into an argument with this metalhead guy. The metalhead guy thought the expression "play it by ear" was actually "play it by air." Personally, I don't know where "ear" comes from, but "air" sounds even more stupid. He was 18 at the time.

Matt

Up until I was like 10, I thought anything you bought that said "pre-" meant it was done half way and you had to finish the other half (like a pre-sharpened pencil was only sharpened half way).

littleone