speaking

I had a large group of girlfriends with whom I walked to and from elementary school. We always walked in the street because on the sidewalk we had to walk in a line (and it was a small town so traffic was minimal). One day I went home and announced to my mom that we were the "street walkers". She cracked up and then suggested that we come up with a different term to describe ourselves. It was many years before I understood why.

Anon

i used to think that the term 'necking' referred to boyfriends and girlfriends who rubbed their necks together

Anon

When I was young, I'd try to make my mother laugh by telling her jokes. She'd usually roll her eyes and remark dryly, "That's hilarious." So for many years, I believed that "hilarious" meant "not very funny."

Debralea

I used to think the phrase "point of view" was actually "point of you." Since it sounds so similar, nobody noticed until I was about 12.

Anon

I thought it was "all of THE sudden" instead of "all of A sudden." I was like past high school when I found out and I still cannot stop saying it my way! I can't even write it--I use "suddenly" instead!

AllOfTheSudden

Because of my sister, I've always been keen on different disabilities that people have. One day at the store we ran into a friend of my mom's who was using a wheelchair. I asked my mom later what she had and I swear she said "voo-kee-oo cremalaptis." It was about a decade later that I realized she had said MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS.

Bad Listener

I used to believe that LMNOP in the alphabet song was "elemental p" and i didn't understand why it was "elemental" p and what elemental means

anon

Because of Beauty and the Beast, I thought that "provincial" meant "boring" because she sings, "I want much more than this provincial life!".

It also made me think "primeval" meant "prime evil", e.g really bad, because Belle uses that word to describe Gaston.

Anon

When I was little I used to believe that if you told a lie, your nose would grow in length.

Lluna

I used to think that the word pizzazz was something to do with pizza.

Anon

Until I was in my 20s, I thought the word "stuck" in the phrase "bleed like a stuck pig" meant stuck as in stuck inside something, and didn't get how it made any sense. Then one day I realized it meant stuck like stabbed or punctured, and I was like "oh, duh!"

Anon

When I was little I thought a widow was someone who stares at you through a window

Anon

I thought the expression "so funny I forgot to laugh" was literal instead of sarcastic

Not so funny after all

I thought common as muck was a substance called commoners muck

oddsox

After being told by my parents or relatives to "behave," I would usually reply: "I am being have."

Ed

I used to get really mixed up between the words 'soldiers' and 'shoulders' to the extent that I had a fixation with the eppilettes on the shoulders of all of my Dad's friends. (My Dad was in the forces - so that didn't help really!)

Scott

I used to think "so-and-so" was a bad word. My mom would be talking to a friend and say something like, "That guy's a little so-and-so!" She would whisper it so I though "so-and-so" was a bad word. However, she was saying "so-and-so" instead of the bad word she really wanted to say.

Amy

A friend of mine used to think that when he was called an "Only Child" that people were calling him a "Lonely Child"

A mate of the Angel

I had a little brother who played soccer and watched a lot of sports movies. In the movies they gave people "pep talks". My brother, since the people were yelling in the movie, thought they were calling people "peptoks" and called me that all the time because he was mean and still is.

Anon

I once thought that I invented the word "buoy". At the time I hadn't learned to spell very much, so I would have been more likely to spell it "booey" or something like that. On my family's first trip to the beach since I came along, as we were nearing the shore, something possessed me to say, "We'll see booeys at the beach!" Maybe I had heard of buoys but forgotten, but something subconsciously prompted me to say that. But I thought at the time I was purely making it up. Once at the beach, I'd point to all sorts of unfamiliar objects, and ask, "Is that a booey?" At first my father would say "Yes" to my question for whatever I pointed to. For a while I supposed he was just going along with my game of making up the word. The first time I remember him saying "No," we were on a ferry ride, and I'd asked the question within the hearing of the ferry operator. In retrospect, I guess my father didn't want the ferry operator to hear him telling me something was a buoy that wasn't. Before the ferry ride was over I was having actual buoys pointed out to me. Gradually I learned to use the word only for real buoys. But for a long time I thought that perhaps they were never called "buoys" until I "invented" the word.

Greg