swearing

When I was young I used to think that the word bullshit was actually boo ship. I used to go around saying it and wonder why I wasn't getting into trouble...

Bert

Until I was seven or eight, I thought the word "shit" was spelled and pronounced like "shet".

One day, I was watching "Double Dare" (a kids' game show in the U.S.), and the host, Marc Summers, was talking to a contestant about a certain pet that she owned.

"Does it shed all over the place?" he asked.

Well, you can imagine what I thought he said. I was appalled that Marc Summers would use such language and confused as to why he didn't get in trouble for it.

Katherine

in grade school, i used to believe that test tube was a naughty word and was embarassed to say it.

miss sara

When I was in Kindergarten I had come home one day yelling,"mommy mommy Sapir(my friend) said the f word. My mom said,"what did she say" and I said,"Sapir said stupid".

Anon

when i was younger (around the age 2) and in hospital with my monthly asthma attack my aunt was watching a programme with me when a man yelled "book'm dano murder one" i of course misheard this and jumped off the bed screaming" F**CK'M DANO MURDER ONE" i yelled this all theway round the hospital wioth my embarressed mother and aunt running after me and apologising.

susie

When I was little I would always get in trouble for saying 'Jesus Christ' if I dropped or broke something, so I thought it was a swear word. I remember driving past a church 'The Church of Jesus Christ', and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't allowed to say it buy churches were.

Carolyn

My little brother used to believe that the 'bat man' dance (where you streak two fingers across each eye) was a swear word. My other brother and I used to walk up to him and do it all the time just to get him to think we were swearing at him.

He also believed that teenagers were people that walked around in trench coats and flashed everyone.

Dawn

My boyfriend's great aunt told me a story about when he was a little boy. He was raised Catholic, and one day he went to Mass. When he got back, somebody asked him how he liked church, and he said that it was okay except for the fact that they made him cuss. Mystified, he was asked what he meant, and he replied, "They kept making me say, "Hell, Mary!" (Hail Mary)

Holly

I was at the park and a kid was reading out the graffiti inside one of the towers. Someone had written "There's a toilet plunge up my a**" but he spelled it out so I assumed it was an abbreviation and a totally acceptable word for butt. I found out otherwise when I casually slipped it into a conversation with my mom. It was still a few years before I learned it was a word!

TooLiteral

When I was a kid I heard my brother say the word "motherfucker" so I asked him what it meant. I think he was worried about teaching me swear words, so he told me that it's what you call your mother if you love her. At the time, our mother was in hospital having her appendix taken out and a couple of days later she came home. I was so psyched to see her and just yelled "motherfucker!!" Gave her one hell of a shock.

Miriam

when i was younger, around 7 or 8, i was watching a program when an advert about the grand prix was on. knowing my father was big on cars, and me seeing the cars flashing by in the background, i ran in on my parents who were holding a conversation with my nextdoor neighbours who we invited round for tea, i ran in and shouted "Dad Dad! the Grand Pricks(prix) are on tv!"

cyber

When i was young my dad told me to stop calling my friend a bitch and to call her a "bench" which was way worse. To this day i sometimes catch myself muttering 'bench' after someone annoys me.

ruth

My dad had a number of words and phrases to replace bad ones when swearing at the Philadelphia Eagles playing football. Some were typical: "sugar", "son of a gun", "darn it anyhow"... But he had this one, "Jeepers Pelts", which I think is actually some derivation of a Polish swear. But as a kid I thought there was an animal called Jeeper whose pelt (fur) was poisonous, so if it touched you it would make you mad and say "Jeeper's Pelts!!"

Ann Y.

i used to believe that if you said a swear word you would turn into the opposite sex the next day

jess

When I saw my 6th grade teacher for the first time at a school assembly, I leaned over to my mom and said "He looks like a prick" thinking it meant uptight and proper, she gave me a look like she was going to smack me and told me never to use the word again. Only later, when finding a dictionary, did I understand its true meaning.

B

When I was a kid, I didn't know what the word "butt plug" meant. But I knew it was a naughty word, one you weren't supposed to say, so that is what I called my brother when I was angry with him. Father Bob, at the catholic school where I attended, one day gave a lesson in controlling your anger, and asked what names we might call our siblings when we were angry with them. He called on me, first, and I stood up and said loudly, "Butt plug! Douche Bag!" and everyone in the classroom laughed. Except Father Bob! He was so upset, he blustered, was a bright purple, and told me to sit down! I was never called on again! lol

JLE

When i was 7, i thought f*** was some sort of naughty British name for a street in London because that's what my mom said it was. A few months later, I was at a sleepover and my friends asked if i knew what f*** meant and i told them what my mom had told me and my friend cracked up and told me what it "really meant"(she said it was a female dog.) I argued with her for a good hour and a half and we stayed in a fight for 3 months. Now that we both know what f*** means, we joke about our fight all the time.

Sarah

Ever since he was in preschool, my youngest brother's favorite movie has always been "The Princess Bride"; he used to watch it constantly. At one point toward the end of the movie, a good guy sneers at a bad guy, "I want my father back, you son of a b****." Luckily, we didn't have to be concerned about my brother learning that naughty word: when he was about nine, we heard him recite the line as, "I want my father back, Hassanavabidge." He thought the bad guy's name was Hassanavabidge.

Katherine

I saw the "F" word in several bathrooms when I was little, and I thought that it was the name of a guy who went to different bathrooms and signed his name in them. I asked my mom who it was, and she told me to never say that word again...

Anon

When I was little, a lot of my books were British, but some were American (and some were in French, but that's another story). So Mom had had to explain to me that there were some words in English that were different from words in American, like "boot" was a thing that went on your feet in America, but it was the space in the back of the car in England. (This after I asked where the boots for the car were.)

A little while later we went skiing, and I was put in ski kindergarten. Apparently the instructor swore in front of me. Dad came home soaking wet from a rainstorm one day, and I said "I wish this fucking rain would stop".

After a little investigation by my Mom, I revealed that I'd learned "that word" from Trevor, the ski instructor. Mom cleverly explained that since Trevor was Scottish, he used some different words, and if I used those words, nobody would understand me! So I forgot all about them. Good thing I didn't think I could speak Scottish!

fey