counting

My uncle is an Eskimo. While here in the lower 48, he was asked to recite the numbers in "eskimo". Since he was put in the white schools and was punished for speaking his native language, he never retained the language. So someone out there believed him when he started counting.... one-uk, two-uk, three-uk.......

Katie

I've been reading the beliefs and I noticed that people have mentioned giving numbers genders and relationships, something I also did, but I also gave them colors. Like, for example, 1 was the color white, which makes since, but for some reason, I thought of it as a disgruntled gay man.
I always wanted to find a way to talk to him to make him happy, but I was also afraid of him.

I really don't know why I got that impression, I liked the gay men I met when I was little. I think i just spent way too much time in Hollywood.

Anon

ok, here we go. no, i was not crazy...i thought that every number was a person. 1 was stuck up because it was the first number, 2 was in love with 1(because 1+1=2), 3 was crazy(idk why), 4 was humble, 5 was mean, 6 was fun, 7 was the most powerful one, 8 was kind, and 9 was smart. I also thought that 0 was the saddest number because it was refered to as nothing.

poisen

I am so glad that some of you were talking about how you thought numbers had different personalities. Here I was thinking that I was the only one.

I always thought that 8 was a mean number. In order to understand, you'd have to see how I added nine to another number that was less than ten.
for example: 9+3=12
First, I'd look at the three and subtract one from it which is two. Then, I'd place a one in front of it.
So I always thought nine was so generous for only taking away one, but 8 was mean because he took away two. Somehow seven and lower didn't end up being mean.

Rachel

until i was about 10 i thought a dozen is about the highest possible number - when i learnt that it is only 12 i was dead disappointed, i nearly cried, it was such a big shock ;)

Melle

I used to believe that 100 plus 100 is 1000 as I couldn't figure that anything as large as 100 could NOT result in 1000!

Marion Schimmelpfennig

I also forgot to mention that 9 was a guy. He had a crush on 8. (I'm remembering more and more about how I thought all numbers had personalities and love triangles)

Aerith

I used to think that certain quantitative words had numbers assigned to them. If 'a couple' was two, 'a few' was three and 'a lot' was four. Naturally, 'several' was seven. I still adhere loosely to this hierarchy of counting.

queeneve

up till i was about 15 i didnt realize that several just ment a few of the items chosen i thought it ment that i had to get seven of them. Its very logical in my thinking because 'seve'ral has the begining of seven in it. I was still embarassed.

ps. i am now 16 and every time i hear several i think of the day i learned it wasnt seven.

Emilie Dale

I had a friend one time who thought "one pillion" was the highest possible number. There is no number higher. I said to him, "All right, then how about one pillion one, one pillion two, one pillion three...". Then he said, "Aw, shut up."

Anon

I used to think that as 'a few' rhymed with two, therefore it meant two. My brain didn't register that a couple of people weren't three of them.

anon

As a child i once arrived at the conclusion that the area of a given circle would be equal to that of a square with a distance around it equal to the circumference of the circle. So the area of a given circle with a circumference C, would be (C/4)^2.

I stubbernly tried to defend this principle during math class. A countering example was quickly found...

Jens

I used to believe that while 'a couple' meant two, that 'a few' meant three. I thought this at least until I was 8 years old.

Even more embarassingly it was my younger brother who clued me into the fact that 'a few' didn't have to be just three. I argued with him that it even made sense since the word 'few' had three letters in it. Of course, I hadn't considered that 'couple' had more than two letters.

At any rate, my mother settled the argument.

Glen

When I started kindergarten, I believed that 100 came directly after 29. Because 29 was the highest number I could count to. I just believed that that was the highest number there was. All the other numbers weren't really numbers, just adjectives, like if you had 36 bananas, 36 was just something that described them, not the quantity.

Jamie

As a child I always thought somehow that the gap between seven and eight was somehow bigger than the gap between other consecutive pairs of integers. Even when I learned arithmetic and knew that 6+1=7, that 7+1=8, and 8+1=9, knowing that the one in each case is the same "one", It still seemed in spite of that the gab between seven and eight was in SOME sense bigger than other gaps between consecutive integers. Kind of contradictory, I know. But I still probably think of seven as the largest small integer and eight as the smallest large integer, the gap SEEMING extra big.

Joanne

I used to believe ther was a "One-teen" and "Two-teen"

Like this: Nine, Ten, Oneteen, Twoteen, Thirteen...

Lecia

My sister used to say "eleventeen" (i think it was eleventeen...)for 21. it was soo funny!

KrazyK

when my 3rd grade teacher taught us about geometry she gave us little tips for remembering which one was which.


Obtuse and open


acute is "a cute" and little angle



when i associated anything with cute those days it was bunnies.

i do not know why.


well when u make an angle you know you have to make a square(for a right angle) or a curved line(for acut and obtuse angles), i always tried to find the little bunnies and neon open signs inside of the angles on tests.

Anon