speaking

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

wen i was younger i used to belive that the word character was pronounced charaCHA and it used 2 drive my sister crazy!

Jacqui

Up until about 3 years ago i had always mistaken the expression: "Take it for granted" for "Take it for granite." As much as i tried to understand this, i could never comprehend why anyone would take anything for granite.

Zack

When my father was young, he would read adaptations of Greek myths. He thought that Persephone (purse-eph-oh-nee), the queen of the underworld, was pronounced "purse-eh-phone." He also thought that Penelope (pen-ell-oh-pee), the wife of Ulysses, was pronounced "Pen-ell-lope" (rhymes with "cantaloupe.") It actually took him a long time to adjust to the correct pronunciations.

Anon

When i was little, i thought that pig latin came from pigs. I was so frightned to eat bacon afterwords :S

Juber

My niece believed that if you touched a cactus plant, you would get “porked” and proceeded to tell me so loudly on a city bus. It was very difficult to explain to her that the correct word was “pricked” while everyone on the bus was howling with laughter.

Mojo!

I was born and raised in NY, as were my parents. My teacher taught us colors in pre-school, and we had just learned "orange", and my teacher pronounced it "ohr-ange." Everytime I would say the word, my mom would correct me and say "ahr-ange." I finally concluded in my little mind that there must be a difference in pronunciation of the color and the fruit, but I didn't know which was which!!! So if I was ever asked to identify either, I would mumble the word because I wasn't sure if I was saying it right.

Matt

I used to believe the word "privacy" was considered rude, because my parents explained to me when I was little the reason they shut the bathroom door was for privacy. I thought it pertained to something involving nudity, and even after I learned different, still felt odd saying the word in public for a long time afterwards.

Kathryn

I often heard people being called dirt bags and wondered what that ment, until one time I was visiting an aunt that had an apple tree in her garden. She was having a problem with moose eating the tree so she tied white bags with dirt in them too a rope fence around the base of the tree. It scared the moose away. I naturally assumed these were dirt bags but never could figure out why you would consider a person to be one.

missa

When I was like four, I went to Disney World. I saw the Little Mermaid's Grotto, which was like this thing where they squirted water on you and you played in very shallow little pools. I wanted to go, but didn't have my bathing suit, so I went without my shirt. My mom said to me, "You have no shame." I thought that was like merchandise, like a Mickey Mouse bathing suit, so when we went to the gift shop later I said, "Mommy, can I get some shame? Pleeeeeeease?"

Katie

My mom would always use old sayings but in front of them she add "You know what they say". I imagined "They" as several british policemen and ladies with eighties hair. I was a wierd kid......

"Curiosity killed the" Cat Eyes

This isn't my belief, buy when my sister was little, she thought a hamster was a type of pig, a fetish was a large rat, and a bra was a beautiful woman.
My mother got very mad at me for teaching her these things when my sister told her teacher that she was her favourite bra ever.

Julia

I used to think the word "rouse" meant a single grain of rice. Since "mice" is the plural of "mouse", and "lice" is the plural of "louse", it seemed to make sense that "rice" would be the plural of "rouse".

Heather

One night, my luittle sister came into my room. She saw a tag on mu dresser. it had been torn off of a set of pajamas, and read something along the lines of "this garment is not fire-retardent"

My sister asked me what a "garment was, and I told her that it was the trident-shaped peice on a bike-helmet buckle.

She belived me.

Anon

When I was a precocious 3 year old, I was certain that all adults spoke Martian among themselves.
I "proved" it to myself by slowly sneaking up on conversations between my mother & our neighbors.
Sure enough, as soon as they psychically detected my presence, the wa-wa underwater-sounds of Martian would smoothly segue into English.

Anon

when i was younger i use to think you would say hillo instead of hello and hi. to this day i say it sometimes.

carly

I used to think that when you went to a baby shower, you actually had to buy the baby a shower and the ones the parents didn't want they'd throw it away. I was a strange kid.

Jeffree Deidara

In Holland we have a sentence when you are scared by a sudden noise or something. I was sitting at the backseat of my mothers bike when someone drove by so fast my mother shouted out 'I scared me a hat!' I remember looking at the sky seeking this hat. I thought it should float somewhere.

hannah

I used to hear random words and start using them out of context.
For example, my dad did something funny, and I said to my mother, "Dad's such a jerk".
Fortunately I never attempted it with any swear words.

Blake