speaking

I used to believe that when people said "(such and such) is on the house" I thought it meant that it was so expensive you'd have sell your house to afford it.

It's on the apartment.

I used to believe when my Mom would tell me that Christmas was "just around the corner" that the people on the next block were having Christmas and we had to wait our turn.

Bonnie

When I was younger, I read in this spanish book that two 'l's (as in, como se llama) were pronounced as 'y'. I promptly forgot that this only applied to Spanish, and so for a very long time (up until 3 years ago) I thought that anything with two l's would have to be pronounced y. for example, I was read this book called 'is your mama a llama' by my mom a lot, and I remember saying, "Mom, it's not lama, it's yama!" I also remembering encountering the name Lloyd for the first time. I announced proudly that the person was named Yoyd, (pronounced like yoid) not Loyd.

Is YOUR mama a yama?

I thought bathing suits were called "baby suits".

Katie

As a small child I believed that the word was "nakeup", finally I found out that it was actually "makeup".

Hannnah P.

I used to believe that the saying "I was a pawn in that situation" was actually I was a prawn which made sense because that meant I was a little shrimp and people could boss me around.

julie adams

I had a friend who thought "seeing eye" dogs were called "senile" dogs. Have to watch out for those dogs that can't remember anything!

Anon

My cousin used to believe that her dad and uncle (the two closest men in her life) sat at the kitchen table one day and decided on the names of everything in the English language.

Rachy

When i was 6 or 7 i used to think that all boyfriends/husbands/fathers spoke with a french accent, so when i played with my barbie, i always portrayed ken speaking with a french accent ahaha all this happened because my mom is portuguese and my father is french

sybil

I thought that awry was pronounced "aw-ree" (rhymes with sorry), instead of "uh-rye". The odd part is, I had heard people say the word aloud lots of times, but it took me ages to realize it was the same word.

Anon

I used to believe that everyone else talked a different language when I wasn't around, and that I was adopted after being found in the garden. I used to believe this because my big sister told me so. Im now bigger than her.

Tom

When I was very young I believed that,like a record,everyone only had a fixed amount of verbal communication and would no longer be able to speak.Thats why Im typing this.

zip it or lose it

I thought when I was small that a few people sat and decided what things were going to be called, like when u name a baby, and i didn't agree with some of the names! I used to really confuse my parents! I still don't agree with some of them!!

Who had the right to name a table table anyway?!

Rae x

My third grade student, protesting a story one of his classmates
was telling, said "That's a bald-headed lie."

Anon

When much younger, I took words very literally. Imagine my young male horror when, after having been sick for a week, I had to go to a "makeup" class for Tennis.

Pat K.

I remember talking about metaphors as a child at school. The kids were giving examples such as 'as blind as a bat'. I piped up with 'cold as a penguin's chuff'. It wasn't until years later I realised that a) the teacher really did look that horrified; and b) a penguin's chuff is NOT the feathers on it's tummy, regardless of what Dad had said.

Catherine

When I was 6, I went to "after school care" because my parents worked later than school hours. One afternoon, I heard all the staff and some of the older students talking in a really worried way, and I heard them say, "After school care has been broken into!" But I thought they said that it has been "broken in two".. and I was really worried that I would be in a different half of it than all my friends.

claire

In Kindergarten, I asked my friend what she was dressing up as for Halloween. She said Tina Turner, but that meant nothing to me, for years I thought she had gone as a teeter-totter(Playground Equipment).

Anon

When I was young I had mixed up many words e.g. cinnamon and cyanide and when in the kindergarten I get some dish with cinnamon I thought it's poisonous. I told to everyone who sat around me, they can't eat this, otherwise they'll die. Nobody wanted to eat, we were sitting so frightened.

Ania

You know how you call someone stupid a squirrel? well I was about 2 or 3 and i was in the backseat of our car while we were driving down the road. i dont know what happened, but my dad said to my mom, "I can't believe they let that squirrel drive!" (a person who couldnt drive well) and my mom has told me that i said "mommy! i want to see the squirrel driving a car!"

blondie