reading

When reading the packages for lotions, soaps, hairspray, etc. I thought "External use only" meant you could only use it if you had an extreme need for it.

chel

In first grade, I thought that if I've never heard of a word before, then it wasn't a word.

Destiny

I once saw the phrase "infrared light" in a physics book I had. I thought the light has been infrared, as if "to infrare" (pronounce inf-rare) was a verb.

Anon

I used to think that the reason AMBULANCE was written backwards on the front of an ambulance was so left-handed people could read it!

Laura

I learned fairly early that "Lt." was the abbreviation for the word "lieutenant", and was very proud of myself for knowing such a fancy word. Except... it was years before I figured out that the "lt. blue" crayon wasn't "lieutenant blue".

Anon

I used to think that oxymoron had something to do with oxygen...

Anon

I learned about opposites from Sesame Street and naturally assumed EVERYTHING in the world had to have an opposite. Spanish was the opposite of English, the sun was the opposite of the moon, candy was the opposite of vegetables, recess was the opposite of classtime, rollerblades were the opposite of bicycles, and cats were the opposite of dogs.

Sam

I used to like reading Marvel comics and such like. Quite often a story ended with a quote from the editor: "Nuff Said". I used to think that 'Nuff' was a person but I could never find any other references in the comics, no matter how hard I tried. I thought that everyone else knew who Nuff was but I didn't and I always felt kind of outside the gang. Gave me a real complex. Took me till adulthood to finally figure that out.

Roy

I was told, at the age of 5, that "No Vacancy" at a hotel meant that no animals were allowed. (we were on vacation, I was talkative, parents were saying anything to answer my questions so I would shut up) Well, I grew up, but I never put two and to together, just would see a hotel/motel and believe that no vacancy meant they didnt allow dogs/cats. At the age of 11 (yes, 11!!) I was walking with some of my parents friends in Orlando, FL, and I mentioned "Wow, alot of places around here dont allow animals!!" Well... with alot of laughs,I finally understood. :-)

Sarah

When my sister, aged 10,was reading a book in the 1940's she said 'Dad, whats a brothel?' My father replied 'a sort of soup kitchen'. She believed this until she was married!

Alan

When I was young, before I knew my ABC's, I didn't understand how it was possible to read without speaking the words out loud. I thought my Mom was being silly when she would read to herself because I believed she was just staring at the page and pretending that she was somehow absorting the content.

Anna

There was a Chinese takeaway near us called the Orient Express. I thought it was Onion Press. Yeah.

Spook

As a little kid in pre-war New Guinea, my parents would read out the eagerly awaited letters from family in Australia - "Grandma asks if you are being a good boy, and Sport (her dog) still likes to play", - and so on. So I knew early that those marks on the paper meant real words, but I wanted to talk to Grandma too, and would scribble on bits of paper while carefully shouting out my message (I knew she was a long way away). But I thought it had to be like a conversation, so I would have to invent Grandma's reply and shout and scribble that too. But if I had to know what her answer would be before "writing" it down, what was the point in asking the question? I was a logical if rather confused child. Things haven't changed much.

Swanny

In the 1930s and 1940s, Virginia Lee Burton wrote and illustrated children's books about anthropomorphic vehicles. There was a steam shovel named Mary Anne, a snow plow named Katy, a cable car named Maybelle, and others.

Several of these stories were collected in a book called something like "Tales of Modern Machinery". (The copy I read to pieces when I was little was probably an original printing that one of my parents had owned since childhood.) I'd never heard the word "modern", before, but I deduced from this book that it meant "old fashioned". Those vehicles looked like the ones in the old photo albums from when my grandparents were newlyweds...

Brenda

When i was young, maybe 8 or 9, I had seen the movie 'The Bodyguard'. And in that movie, they mentioned that the bad guy had 'masturbated' on the bed of the victim. Well, my dad was driving me to school one morning, and i asked him what maturbate meant. He got really angry and told me it was a dirty word and that i should never say that again or think about that! I eventually looked it up in the dictionary at school, and still didn't understand it...what the heck was 'manually stimulating oneself to achieve orgasm' supposed to mean to an 8 year old?! So i just wrote the meaning down in my diary. My then teenage brother ended up stealing my diary, and when i asked him if he had seen it, he said: "Masturbation?" Talk about embarressing!

Sharky

I used to believe that the people on magazines and books could see you. (waayy before the Harry Potter moving picture thing) So when in the loo I'd have to turn the faces over or put them in a cupboard so they couldn't see me using the toilet.

28 and still strange

When was 6-7 i wasn,t very good at reading big words, and every evening i would sit with my Dad and read to him out of the newspaper, and when i came to a word i couldn,t say, he told me to say Wheelbarrow, and one friday in school we always had reading out load, so when i was asked to read , i kept saying wheelbarrow when i came to a word i didn,t know, so after a while the teacher said Janice why do you keep saying wheelbarrow, and i told her my Dad told me i could always say that word if i came across a word i could not read.


Sadly my Dad died when i was 9years old but i shall never forget my time spent with him while he lay in bed.

Janice Owen

I began reading the Harry Potter series when I was 10 and, according to the books, you get your letter to Hogwarts on your 11th birthday. I was completely convinced these books were real and cried for hours on my 11th birthday when no letter of acceptence to this magical school came.

Anon

One time when I was younger my family went out to dinner at a restaurant right next to a store called David's Bridal (wedding store, obviously). I did not know what "Bridal" meant, but I did know that you put a "Bridle" on a horse when you wanted to ride it. So I concluded that David's Bridal must be a horse store. It didn't help that there was a large statue of a horse nearby.

Hannah P.

One of my big sister's friends was reading a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book. I was afraid of it because I believed if you read it, you would actually be transformed into an animal.

James G.