speaking

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 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

I remember my mom saying it must be in their genes. I heard it as jeans and wondered what could possibly be in those jeans.

Kel

A few years ago, I was at my aunts house visiting. Well, she was a little annoyed at my cousin (who was about 6 at the time) always saying the word "aint". So me and my sister told her that we had a friend who used that word and she got so sick she had to go to the hospital. I only heard her say the word about once the whole rest of the time ;)

Amanda

In kindergarden, my teacher would always use the name "Sowenso" as an example for things. I thought that "Sowenso" was an invisible monkey that did the examples that she made him do. I thought Sowenso was in our class until 6th grade when I realized that Sowenso was actaully a phrase "So-and-so".

Staycie

When i was about 5, I thought "clouds" were pronounced "clowns" and everytime me and my little sister where outside, we'd look for the clowns in the sky

sunshine

I had a dream once that if you spoke while you were moving, you'd turn into an animal. For weeks afterwards, I'd make sure I was perfectly still before saying a word.

Snap-hiss