speaking

When I was about 8 years old, I overheard my family talking about the increase in numbers of Lebanese immigrating to South Africa. Somewhere along the line I also hear the word Lesbian.

Not knowing the meaning of either word, I told classmates at school that one of my older brother's friends (a man) was a Lesbian. Got into real trouble at home when the school queried my conversation.

Cynthia

In 1959 I had a class about menstruation.(They didn't call it a "period" way back then). I had never heard of it before. Then on TV they kept saying it over and over and I wondered why the men were talking about it. I asked my teacher..she watched and really listened to the news....she said they were saying Adminstration. I was very naive

Deloris

I used to believe that an oncologist was an "on-call-ogist"

Anon

My grandparents used to always tell their dogs to "shut up", so I thought that the term was only used for dogs. Then one day my mom playfully told me to shut up, and I told her, "I'm not a dog!"

TheLoudPlayr

when i was younger i use to think you would say hillo instead of hello and hi. to this day i say it sometimes.

carly

I used to beleive when ppl didn't talk (deaf ppl) they lost their voice and could never talk again!

Tiara 10

I used to believe that the term "thing" referred not to any kind of object, but to a specific one which for some reason looked like a reddish, deflated balloon(especially in the context of "poor thing"). And when I heard the term "wits", as in "I've lost my wits" I pictured these as white plastic button-like objects.

Emily

When I was a very young girl I talked a lot and people would make me feel bad by saying how much I talked and that I should talk less. My grandmother heard this and told me this... "Don't worry people who talk a lot never have bad breath because the germs can't live in a mouth that is always moving." I believed this and I always thought that the priest at my church had very bad breath so he must not talk alot. I then proceeded to tell him that he should talk more so his breath wouldn't stink so much. :( Needless to say I got in trouble.

Noel

I used to believe that the phrase "outer space" was really "out of space"... as in a spaceship from "out of space". My reasoning was that space is the boundary of the place we know, and weird things come from beyond it. I still catch myself saying it to this day, and I'm in my forties.

Rokas

I had my wife convinced that Steven Hawking made his fortune as the original voice for the speak N spell toy.

Anon

I used to believe that "boots" were actually called "boots on". This was because whenever it was time to go outside, my parents would tell me, "get your boots on!".
Because of this, whenever I wanted to take them off, I would tell my parents that I wanted my boots on off.

feebs

When I was young & we said the pledge of allegiance in school I always thought that was "and to the republice for witched stance". I was so relieved when I finally realized that it was "for which it stands". It just made so much more sense!

Pledge Girl

I used to believe that i could understand what my baby sisters and brothers could say.i went around translating for like two years.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

I used to believ that "Shooting the Bull" literally meant what it states.

DJ

I thought the song "Secret Agent Man" was "Secret Asian Man" until I was in JR. High and they did a skit with a secret agent.

Whitney

I used to hear grownups say "So-and-so is really struggling to make ends meet", but I thought they were saying ends MEAT - the cheepest, yuckiest cut of beef there ever was. I always felt so sorry for the poor people who couldn't even afford to make ends meat.

a compassionate kid