speaking

my son who is now 15 used to say "can i have a bowl of colins " instead of cornflakes !! WE DID NOT EVEN KNOW ANYONE CALLED COLIN so god knows where that came from,he also used to think that the postman brought the snow with him in his bag (we are from u.k where it obviously does not snow alot)

emma jane

I had heard the phrase "the thrill of the hunt" for quite sometime, thinking each time I was hearing "Attila the Hun". People were saying for example, what someone did for "the thrill of the hunt". I wondered why someone was doing the thing in question for Attila the Hun. In time I finally figured out the phrase "the thrill of the hunt".

Ron

I used to believe that the sign language used by Deaf people involved fingerspelling every word. Probably due to reading a Happy Hollister book with a Deaf character who taught the Hollister kids the finger alphabet to use for silent communication purposes in their "detective" work.

silent talker

Until I was in 5th grade, I thought that calling someone a "wannabe", was like calling someone a lesbian. This was why girls were always calling other girls "wannabe's" when they were name calling. I specifically remember saying "That girl is such a wannabe", thinking that I was saying that she wanted to kiss other girls.

Christa

When I was little I used to think the word illegal was a sick bird! And always felt bad for all of the eagles in the news when I heard about some illegal act.. What a strange child was I.

Sara from Ontario

Maybe a feature of my minor variant of dyslexia, maybe not ... as I kid I pronounced 'schweppes' as skech-e-ewipes- ... needless to say there were many parental corrections until I finally got my tongue around it - and in those days I only encountered it on planes!

Gemz

When I was younger I heard the word manure used (my mother and most nearby relatives had gardens), but had never seen it written. When I finally saw it I failed to connect the spoken word with what I was reading, so I gave it my own pronunciation: man'yer. It took a while to dicsover the mistake.

Charles

When i was about 9 i had this made up alphabet.I used to talk to m imaginary friends and real friend in it. For every letter of the alphabet was a wierd symbol.
Wierd huh?

Hayley!

I once asked a teenage friend's dad on the way to a play what a "thespian" was, since it was being put on by a Thespian club. He told me, straight faced, that it was when the doctor came in and said to the parents, "Well, he's healthy, but he'll never be quite right." I thought I was going to see a play put on by the disabled.

Coach1977

My OLDER (Haha) sister had two friends sleeping over and it was late at night when we rememberd to walk the dogs so we all had to go together so we wouldnt get kidnapped (That was the rull) And so me, her and her two friends were walking the dogs at the park and one of her friends just randomly sai the word "Mojo" (From Austin Powers) And they all started to laugh (And yes, they are all older than me!) And I said, do you guys even know what that is? And they all said yes and I said, okay, then what is it? And my sister was like, we cant tell you! And I explained it to them and they were like, nu'u! And then they asked our sixteen year old sister and she said the same thing and they wouldnt talk to me for the rest of the nigh! XD

Dessy

I used to think the the "gyne" in gynecologist was pronounced like the end of the word "vagina," much to my embarrassment when I had to read it out loud in high school health class.

Anon

I used to believe that pinto horses were called that because they had pins in their toes instead of shoes on their feet.

Anon

one time i wanted a princess dress at a store, to which my parents responded "someday." i heard "sunday," and it was sunday so i thought they meant later that day, and was very offended when we couldn't go back to the store later and that they laughed at my request.

Anon

When I was younger, a friend of mine told me that to be "mature" meant that you had a lot of friends, and being "immature" was like being a loser, geek, nerd, etc.

I went on for months calling people I didn't like "immature."

When I was about 10 I actually looked up "mature".


I still call people I don't like immature. and I know what it means.

Mature Young Woman

When I was little mt older sister kept talking about joining the Leif Garrett fan club, and I thought she said "van club", so I assumed that a star's "van club" was that star (Leif Garrett, Farrah Fawcett, etc.) driving around in a van to visit people that liked them.

Price

When I saw the word "idiot" in print, I mentally heard "I-did-i-ot". Makes absolutly no sense why, just did.

BobT

I used to believe it was "hand cups" and "bolly ball".

Jeff

Cause as a child, ur still developing those speech skills, I used to be absolutely convinced it was Amemeca (America). And oh yeah, all colours were purple.

sos

When I'd first get home from work, I'd bring in the mail and seem if there was a letter fromauntsusan. My daughter picked this up and began to call my sister Mant Susan

Anon

I had just moved to Australia from Zimbabwe, and was asked by a girl in my class for a thesaurus..
Since i didn't know what a thesaurus was, i questioned her.. She informed me that a thesaurus was a dinosaur eraser - it was occured to me years later..

Why would anyone want a dinosaur rubber???

Josh