counting

I used to believe that a hundred and one hundred were different numbers. When I was fascinated with counting that high, I always did a hundred first, then continued to count to one hundred.

Velma

Until I was about 3 or 4 years old, I thought that the largest number was 18, and that there could only be 18 of everything. The first time I heard any number past 18 was once when I heard my mom counting to 20 (We were probably having a conversation about numbers), and I asked what the number "nineteennwenty" looked like.

Anon

that the word "couple" as in "a couple of items" was synonymous with "several", rather than "just two".

Blair A. Petterson

After my first day at kindergarden I told my Mother that I was not going back anymore. When asked why I told her that the teacher wanted me to make number one and number two on the paper and that was nasty. I am 75 and still hear about that from family members.

Gerry

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 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

When I was young I didn't get the whole concept of numbers or value of money. I thought that when you went to a store, you just gave them some money, and they gave you some back. I was very confused one time when my mother didn't get any change back, and acted like this wasn't a problem at all.

Anon

When I was six years old, a relative from Czechoslovakia visited Florida, and was staying at my grandmother's house. When I met him, I was playing with my Super Speak & Math, and pushed in 4, the answer to my problem. Jokingly, he said "Oops! You pressed 2!" and I felt sorry for him. He seemed to speak English well, but he didn't yet know the American number system.

Vince

I used to (and still sort of do) always assume some numbers were more *special* than others. namely 5, 2, and 50.

i also remember multiplication in strange ways, rather than just memorizing or counting each time) because i think of the relationship two numbers have with each other, such as : 6 and 7 are unusual numbers, so multiplying them together creates a regular numbe:42

Weirdo

When we learned how to spell out numbers, I had the weirdest problem where I thought they were spelled like '6ix' or '5ive' or '9ine' or '7even' etc. I couldn't see the error at all. I still think they look good that way.

Megan Craig

haha counting... when i was little- before i really knew how to count- this is how i would add or subtract:
24-4=2
50-0=5
31-3=1
get it? i'd just take that number away... haha so stupid!

Emily

I remember in gr.1 learning to make the number 8 as 2 circles. Then in gr.2, my new teacher said to make it like a figure 8.
For the longest time I thought my 2 teachers would get in a fight about which way to make an 8.

Anon

When I was about 4 I used to believe the very last number that you could count to was called 'tendy' (pronounced ten-dee), so whenever I got tired of counting I would just say 'tendy' and be finished.

Rachel

When I was in kindergarten one day we were learning about numbers and we were counting. It seemed like forever that we were counting outloud so I asked my friend "when do numbers stop?". She told me that "they never end!". And I couldn't understand that at all so I thought she was just nuts and was that obsessed with numbers!

Shannon

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

Until I was four or five, I always thought that since 1+1=2, 2+2 must equal 3. I insisted I was right until I finally learned to add properly and had a lot of arguments with my dad about this, who tried to explain it without laughing. I now am in 7th grade honors math!!!

Anon

When I was younger, I used to believe that you couldn't count backwards unless you said "Zero, Blast Off!" at the end.

3, 2, 1, 0, Blast Off!

Before I went to Kindergarten and was learning to count, I always left out the number 8: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10. And my mum and dad would always say (so they would tell me, as I don't remember this): "What ever happened to poor old 8?" And I apparently would have no idea. And strange enough, 8 is my favorite number today!

Jill

i could swear eleventeen was a number for the longest time -- it still sounds pretty convincing.

erin

i thought that 1+1 actually was both 11, and 2.

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