reading

Whenever we travelled to the States, I thought that "Exxon" (like on the gas station signs) was how Americans spelled "Esso," which made me believe that Americans spoke a different language than Canadians.

Tammy

When I was maybe 3, my family went to Disneyland. My sister's name is Adrienne, and we both got autograph books for the Disney charcters to sign. On the cover, it said "Autographs". I kept saying, "This isn't mine, it's Adrienne's, because it says her name on the front" Apparently I misread "Autographs" as my sister's name. The funny thing is, Now I am a very good reader and speller.

Jarrod

I always thought that the tv commercial phrase "Reading is fundamental" was instead "Reading is fun to mental". I guess I was. D'oh!

Chicago Joe

When I was little I never understood why adults liked to read. I thought that all the read were information books or dictionary/thesaurus... I never knew they actually had fiction books! Not until I was about 10!

Bekkie O.

We always passed an antique store on the way to my grandma's house. I always thought to myself, "What is an anti-q store and what in the world would they sell there?"

tonybaloney

I used to think Jane Austen was related to the Bronte sisters, maybe like their cousin or step/half-sister.

Anon

when i was wee i used to think union was pronounced like onion, which led to some confusion when seeing the covers of various news magazines during the various strikes and worker problems of the 70's and early 80's

adrian

When I was 8 or 9 years old, I read Harry Potter, and I was convinced I was going to Hogwards too. I kept believing it until I was 11, because I didn't receive a message form Dubledore. I was so disappointed..

Dude

When I was 4 or 5, I learned how to read. But when you learn how to read, you always speak out loud so that your teacher or parent can help you along. I thought it was a group activity. So one evening at home, I was on the floor reading some children's book aloud, and my older sister got annoyed with me and said, "Andrew, be quiet and read in your head!"

I tried a page not saying anything but still taking in the words, and was amazed when I could do it! It suddenly dawned on me that I could enjoy the imaginary worlds in books in private, and this was an amazingly powerful ability.

Andrew

When I was little and learnign to read, I used to believe that chaos was pronounced "Chaa-Ose."

Anon

When I was a child, I used to believe Sherlock Holmes was a real person. But I learned that he is just an imaginary character.

a dreamer

When I was 5, I believed that the older you are the bigger the books you read. I have clear memories of sitting in library class planning that in the future when I was in grade 6 (about 11 years old) I would borrow the two red 10 cm thick books that sat on the shelf behind the library teacher. As I grew older I realised that I had in fact planned to borrow two volumes of the dictionary !!!

C S Wagon

At around the age of 7-9 I somehow came to the belief that the abbreviation "lb." for pound was actually an abbreviation for the unit of measure "lillebeeter". Perhaps I'd mis-heard the word "millimeter", which was still a relative rarity in 70's Canada?

michael

I thought the word lackadaisical was something to do with lacking daisies.

Anon

Once in seventh grade we all had to read from our science books aloud. Well, I was reading a sentence and I came across the word Organism of course I thought I said Orgasm, so that's what I read outloud in front of my whole class. Everyone broke out laughing, even the teacher!

RoxyChic

When I reached the third grade, my family moved to a different state and, threfore, I had to attend a different school. It was larger than my old school, so it was already intimidating. The first day, as I was walking down the hall, I saw a sign that said "Walk on the right side of the hall." I thought it meant walk on the 'correct' side of the hall. I was so scared, because nobody had told me what the correct side was.

pastrami

I used to think that "Fl. Oz." stood for FLORAL ounces, and I couldn't understand what flowers had to do with anything. I still occasionally misread that abbreviation.

Anon

I read books avidly as a kid and was always awaiting the Library doors to open. I was born in 1943.

I always had a problem with two words. For years I pronounced 'Slough' as 'Sluf' and also 'Hugh' (a hero in one of my books) as 'Huff'. I suppose I had learnt to pronounce Rough and assumed the other words corresponded.

Penny

When I was in kindergarten we got a new computer (windows 3.1 primitve by todays standards) anyway, it came with a gane tha thad mario in it, although, I can't remember what the game was. Anyway, once, when I was learning to read, I was sitting next to my older brother while he did somethign on the computer, while I tried to read the word "Mario" on the floppy disk that game came on. Well, needless to say, I falied and instead said, somehow managed to say "Mubbery" (like "rubbery" or "srubbery") instead. So, my brother instantly burst out laughing and he told my other older brother (who just got a new cat) and he liked it...so they named the cat "Mubbery". That cat lived for years and peopel would always wonder why on Gods green Earth why anyone would name a cat such a stupid word. I have a strange family.......

Stupid, inbred redneck from Kansas.

A certain cousin of mine tends to be quite stubborn. When she was about five years old (and I in my late teens), she was absolutely certain that there was no way I could know how to read, as I'd never "went to school." (My parents chose to home-school me.) Eventually, I managed to set her straight and even tease her about it a couple of times.

I two kin reed! :P