language: speaking

I was watching the news with my father one day, and the newscaster announced "Ravaging Guerrilas are invading the middle East." I thought he meant gorrilas and kept wondering "wow where did they all come from, how will they get them back in the zoo?

Around age 10 I heard my mother in a verbal fight with my grandmother. She said something about being "aloof and cold", and I thought for years that she had said "a hoof and colt".

When I was in preschool, my favorite movie was Disney's "Hercules". Unfortunately, I was cursed with the inability to pronounce it right.

Amazingly enough, I would always pronounce it "fuckules". Meaning, it sounded like, "fuck-you-lees". I would go around saying it so casually, wondering why adults would stare at me so weird. Nobody told me I was pronouncing it wrong, because only my family ever heard it much, and they were too amused with my mispronunciation to tell me.

Anyway, one day, I came home from preschool and happily told Mom, "Hey, Mom! My teacher taught me something today!" Curious, Mom asked me what. I then shouted, "HA.. HA.. HERCULES!"

The look on Mom's face was priceless. She KNEW what I had said at school..

I still remember that absolutely HORRIFIED expression on her face.

Well. There are a few words I come across I cannot pronounce properly the first time I read it. The one I remember most is the word "patio." I was reading from a novel, and I remember re-reading the section about the "patio" (which I was pronouncing "Pay-She-Oh, probably due to French lessons.) Anyways, I turned to my mom and was like "What is a Pay-She-Oh?" and she was like "What?!?!" (This is coming from a grammar/spelling nerd, and a kid who used to read dictionaries and encyclopedias for fun, so it was extremely embarrassing for me.) I turned around and said "Pay-She-Oh." again, thinking it was some strange word. I showed my mom and read: (This is basically what it said, as far as I remember.) "They were sitting around a table on the pay-she-oh, eating Sloppy Joes." she turned around and looked me in the eye, and said "Honey, that's Pat-Ee-Oh." I really, really felt embarrassed. I've always taken my spelling, grammar, and pronunciation very seriously, and needless to say, I was tormenting myself by studying more of the dictionary after this happened.

My sister had her own language as a toddler. Once she told my dad and me she needed a "bone for her didden". We had no idea what she was talking about and had to call my mom to interpret.

She wanted a comb for her hair.

When I was a kid my teacher said, "Children, if you feel the need to vomit, just go immediately to the bathroom -- you do not have to ask me for permission first." I always thought that she said "bomb-it" for vomit. It made perfect sense to me because that's exactly what happens when you throw up. It wasn't until third grade that I actually learned the true spelling of the word.

Just recently my mom told me about some of the odd things I used to say when I was younger, one of them was this: when my first nephew was born, I was about three and didn't know what that meant. She told me I had a nephew and I replied 'neph-me?' because I thought she said neph you I guess...

When I was 4 I thought the word "zit" was actually "dazit" and I used to tease my aunt about hers all the time. Now she gets her paybacks and teases me about my "dazits."

My family went on vacation to Hawaii and we went to Pearl Harbor to do the tourist thing. They were refinishing an exhibit out doors and there was a sign that said "PLEASE WATCH FOR FLYING DEBRIS." My brother says, "what's flying DEB-ris (pronounced as it looks) and my dad says, "they are part of the Flying Wallindas." Dorks :)

When I was a child, I heard the term Blackmail. So I ask my mother. She told me it was a letter that was in a black envelope. Ok, not going to argue. It came back to haunt me when my child asked me the same thing, and of course, I gave him the same answer my mother gave me.

i didn't know the difference between the words "deaf" and "death", so i used them interchangably.

When I was very young, we were leaving my Grandmother's house, and she said to me, "I'll have to come visit you at your house one day."

I had never heard the words "one day" used in this manner. As far as I was concerned, the only usage of that term was at the beginning of a story (i.e "One day Johnny was walking down the street..."). To me, "one day" always meant something in the past, and I thought she was crazy to use it to talk about something in the future.

When I was about four I thought adults spoke a diferent language.

Currently, in my 9th grade class, we are studying genes and the like in biology. Well, we briefly touched on it in 8th grade, and I remember reading the word alleles, but never hearing it said out loud. About last week, I heard my teacher say it, but to my surprise she said it 'al-LEELS'. I had assumed it was pronounced "a-LAY-lees". It gets worse, I tried to correct her.

I always believed movable bungalows were called "dungalows" and always believed it was right.

I visited a park when I was younger called "duinrell" in Holland and it's not until a couple days ago when I visited the website that I realised "duingalow" is just a gimmick..

I am 21.

I used to believe (thanks to my brother...) that whenever anybody said 'They', they were talking about my other brother's class. "They're going to build a huge bridge across the river." "Who's they?" "Greg's class!"