counting

When I was a kid I believed that the number 11 was pronounced "onety-one"

Alicia

When I was about 5, I never knew about the number seven.

I used to count 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10. I remember the shock when, on holiday, my parents told me about sevens.

I still think it was rather a pity; if they'd never told me, I would have been one of the only five-year olds in the UK who could count in base nine...

David Given

When I was in third grade, I had lots of Playmobil toys (dolls and all the furniture and stuff for the world they live in) and one thing was a box that said No. 28 (number 28). I thought that said "No 28" as in 28 had been removed from the counting sequence. My image of 28 for some reason was this really nice teacher who taught all the lower numbers until she spontaneously exploded! Poor 28! To this day 28 is my favorite number (followed by 48 and 8, but I have no explanation for these).

i love 28

When I learned that 1 times 0 is 0... And that 2x0 is 0... and that 3x0 is 0... Naturally, I concluded that ANY number multiplied by ANY other number is 0. Genius.

The Rabbitlord

When in primary school we were taught with coloured wooden blocks marked with notches how to count, addition, subtraction etc. For example ten was always red, five green, single units were yellow. To this day I still relate colours to shapes and numbers and vice versa. Red + green = 15. I'm 34 (three yellows + four yellows) and an accountant.

Bewildered

I used to believe that, in Algebra, every letter was assigned a number and it never changed. Like A would be 1, B would be 2, etc. So all you had to do was memorize the number that went with the letter and put it in every time you saw it...I never quite got the hang of Algebra...

Mathew

i used to believe that 100 was the biggest number in the whole wide world and cried when a boy told me that you could get two or three hundred as well

cleabea

When I was just starting school we had that ryhme "one, two, skip a few, 99, 100". I thought that was actually how you counted to 100 and that "skippafyu" was just another number that just didn't have a written version yet. I spent a lot of time trying to invent the written form of the number "skippafyu".

Anon

My cousin used to think that the lowest number in existence was negative zero. He knew that negative numbers were all lower than positive ones, but he wouldn't believe me when I told him they were in reverse order.

Joe Martinez

I remember one time when I was in kindergarten I couldn't comprehend what the teacher was saying after she counted to 12 because the next number was 13 and in my head I heard it as being three saltines as in the crackers. So ever time my teacher would ask whats after tens I said Saltines.... maybe that's why I was left back

AJ

Well, I guess I'm not the *only* person to give numbers genders, colors and personalities!

1=male, burnt orange
2=female, yellow
3=female, green
4=male, dark blue
5=male, orange
6=female, red
7=female, terquoise
8=female,dark green
9=male, burnt orange, but lighter than 1

4 and 5 were best friends, but 5 was often very bossy (probably because he was bigger). 6 and 7 were best friends, too, and they were tomboys. 1 and 2 were toddlers. 3 was a preppy "girly girl". 8 was often very lonely; she had no friends. And 9 was a weird teenager who just didn't care about anything and he did drugs.

I hate math.

Shirley B.

I thought I was the only weirdo in existence who thought numbers had gender and personality but I see I wasn't the only one! Even more bizarre though, is that I felt they had "ages" also--1 & 2 were older, 3 & 4 were younger, 5 & 6 older, etc.

Muffin

When I was about 5 or 6 years old, I thought, I could count up to 1 million. I counted correctly to 100, but then 101, 102, 103,.....108, 109, 1000, 1001, 1002, 1003, ....1008, 1009, 1 000 000.
I actually thought, this was the right way.

I was very proud on this ability and always wondered, why I didn't get very much respect for this by grown-ups.

Anon

I Thought i was pretty smart as a young kid and liked to show off to my parents. On one roadtrip i wanted to show my parents i could count to a million, so i started counting and i knew up to 100 or so, but i remember my parents (maybe sick of my squeaky-voiced counting and "are you listening to me? Muuuum? Daaaad?") distracted me with a book i could write all the numbers instead

Anon

My neighbors used to believe you could never count to 100 in a day, it would atleast take a week.

raceystacyUS

I used to believe that 'a couple' meant three of something and 'a few' meant four of something. So, if my Dad asked me to go and get a couple of cups I would come back with three!

Claire Bussey

When I was a little kid, I asumed the word "several" was another way of saying "seven". And several could ONLY mean seven, and I would actually sometimes substitute "several" for seven while counting!

Pablo

When I was very young I was convinced that there was a biggest number. And I was continually annoyed that no one would tell me what the biggest number was. I asked my mom all the time but she would never give me an answer. It seemed to me that if there was a smallest number (0) then there must be a biggest number too. I was extremely annoyed by this until I was 6 or 7!

Ashley

i used to think that my adopted mom, who even at the time was quite old, was actually 10 years old. i thought this because i could only count up to ten at the time, so i thought 10 must be pretty old. i also thought that i would become a grown up when i became 10.

Tracy

My uncle told me that there was a number between six and seven called "bleen".

Five...Six...Bleen...Seven...Eight...

Dave