speaking

I used to be confused no end by the use of the phrase "You never can tell". It seemed to imply that the outcome of an event being spoken of would remain a mystery forever, no one EVER knowing the result. But generally the phrase was applied to matters whose outcome would actually soon be obvious. I eventually figured out that the intended meaning is that you can never tell IN ADVANCE about such outcomes, but only after a whole lot of confusion in thinking that "never" always meant never, forever.

Tiffany

When I was little, My mom and I were going somewhere in the car when all the sudden I started yelling "MILITARY, MILITARY, MILITARY!" When she did know what I was talking about, I said to her "The place with the little rocks were the people died." I thought a cemetary was actually a military when I was little.

Liz

Once when I was a kid, I said to my mom, "Woudn't it be neat if they invented two machines: A mess-maker, and a mess-cleaner-upper?" She sarcastically replied, "Oh, I already have TWO mess-makers!"

For several minutes, I was impressed, but confused, wondering why she had opted to buy TWO mess-makers, and not a single mess-cleaner-upper, as that was clearly the more useful of the two inventions.

That is, until I realized that she was referring the my sister and me.

Joe Martinez

When I was very young, we were leaving my Grandmother's house, and she said to me, "I'll have to come visit you at your house one day."

I had never heard the words "one day" used in this manner. As far as I was concerned, the only usage of that term was at the beginning of a story (i.e "One day Johnny was walking down the street..."). To me, "one day" always meant something in the past, and I thought she was crazy to use it to talk about something in the future.

Joe Martinez

When I first heard the words "connive" and "conniving", I thought some people were trying to say "knife" and "knifing", not knowing that the "k" is silent.

Natalie

I used to often wonder if the words that came out of my mouth sounded different to others, and the things they said sounded different to me.. odd huh?

Jen

god assigned each person a certian amount of words once thier words ran out you died

alyssa

I have never heard the term outside South Australia, but it was common for decades to answer a child asking an awkward question about something to say, "Oh, it's just a wigwam for a goose's bridle". Curiously, this always seemed to satisfy the child but, covering so many things, it must have caused confusion in many tiny minds.

Swanny

Nephew aged 6 was crazy about westerns but always called cavalry, "cattle-ry". Well, I suppose the other blokes on horses were called "Cowboys" - so, logical? He was so persistent that the whole family now says the same, thirty years later!

Swanny

Maybe a feature of my minor variant of dyslexia, maybe not ... as I kid I pronounced 'schweppes' as skech-e-ewipes- ... needless to say there were many parental corrections until I finally got my tongue around it - and in those days I only encountered it on planes!

Gemz

I watched the Peanuts halloween TV special, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," every year when I was a kid. I got very confused when Linus kept saying that his pumpkin patch had nothing but sincerity "as far as the eye can see" because, besides not knowing what sincerity was, I always heard the last part as "asfarazee I can see." I always wondered what an asfarazee was and why it was so great that Linus could see it.

Mandi

For some reason I thought that the word "tardy" meant dirty. One time in 3rd grade I was late to school, so my dad was writing a letter to my teacher and I was reading over his shoulder, and when I saw what he wrote, I exclaimed "Why would you say I'm tardy?!" and started checking my sweater for dirt and smoothing down my hair. He told me that it just meant late, but I still insisted that he change the word to "late" not tardy, because I was not dirty!

Molly

When I was little I used to think the word illegal was a sick bird! And always felt bad for all of the eagles in the news when I heard about some illegal act.. What a strange child was I.

Sara from Ontario

When my sister was little, we would stay at home alone together a lot. We were sitting around one night when the phone rang. I went and answered it and came back It was just a telemarketer so I had hung up rather quickly. My sister asked who it was, and I was in the mood to speak fancily. So I told her it was a solicitor. She wouldn't stop screaming that I shouldn't scare her like that and to stop being mean. She was so loud, it took me a while to calm her down. Once she had settled herself a bit, she let me know (very defiantly) that she knew solicitor meant murderer and that I was just trying to scare her.

Emily Ruth

When my sister was little, she pronounced candelabra as candle-bra.

Emily Ruth

When i was really little, every time my mom came home with a bag of something, I was always ask what was in it. Every time i got the same responce: "Hooks to catch suckers, and you're the first to bite." Well, I never really listened to the second part. All i knew is that i wanted to get into that bag and get some of the 'special' hooks to catch me some suckers! (what little kid doesn't like candy?) It wasn't until i was about 17 that i realized the meaning behind that saying. Thankx so much mom.

Samantha

i used to think that the word "candid" meant "candied", so when i heard of candid photos, i thought that it meant photographs that were somehow coated with candy. I still imagine a screen full of little candies when i think of the tv show "candid camera"

molly

up until fourth grade, i thought that "compliment" was another word for insult.
so whenever i would make a joke about someone, you could see them chasing me around with me screaming "it's not a compliment! it's not a compliment!"

Anon

I used to think the term "breaking a record" literally meant you took a record(the kind that plays music) and broke it in half. I didnt understand why it really mattered when people did it and why they got famouse for it. I also thought that in the Guinness Book of World Records, guinness was an adjective descibing how great the broken records were or something. It was all very confusing. Im still not really sure if guinness is a name or what. I sure am smart.

Anon