speaking

I used to believe that 'hospital' was pronounced hos-pill-til, because that's where you got medicines and pills to make you better!

I also remember seeing the word 'Mom' written in a book, and thinking that it was a mis-spelling (in the UK we say 'Mum'), not realising that Mom is American.

Kirstenie

my former colleague, david neilsen, used to belive that there was a nomadic dwelling - perhaps like a yurt - called a "purpose". he inferred this from a figure of speach which he took to mean "what i'm about to say is so obvious it's known by all nomads". the idiom in question was "to all in tents and purposes...."

stuart Swanston

As a child my mother would warn my sister and me that "If you don't stop that I'll spifflicate you". Whe nI was young, I thought spifflicate meant spank or punish. When I got older (in my teens) I thought it was just a word she made up to frighten us. Recently (in my twenties) I actually looked it up (trying to prove to someone it was ont a word) and found that spifflicate IS in the dictionary and it means to KILL!! Now I'll bear psychological scars the rest of my life because I discovered that my mother had been treatening to kill me when I was naughty. I confronted her with this once and she just laughed at me. She KNEW what the word meant!!!! 

proto-sybill 

When my younger sister was really small (maybe 5), she got in the habit of calling me a 'stupid fuck'. One time, she said that to me and my mom walked in. My mom wasn't exactly happy hearing my sister say that, and to avoid her own embarrassment, she made me tell my sister what 'fuck' meant. Apparently my sister just thought it was another term for a person, but not a 'bad' word. That was the last time she's ever called me that. 

Anon

I used to think "so-and-so" was a bad word. My mom would be talking to a friend and say something like, "That guy's a little so-and-so!" She would whisper it so I though "so-and-so" was a bad word. However, she was saying "so-and-so" instead of the bad word she really wanted to say.

Amy

When I was little, I watched "All in the Family". I didn't understand "before" could also mean "in front of", so when Rob Reiner would say "All in the Family was filmed before a live audience", it confused the heck out of me.

Gardenwife

My mother used to complain she "couldn't get a word in edgewise". I thought "that's ok, none of us speak Edge-a-wise."

diane

I used to believe that the phrase "Indian Summer" referred to some sub-continental practice of gift giving. Like they give you a gift that you keep for a while and give back.

I only recently (like past 3 years) realized that the Indian referred to was the american Indian and the people taking the gift back were the Whites - ie Oklahoma!

Anon

I thought the phrase "make ends meet" was "make ends meat." I thought it was some particular kind of meat or a dish made with this meat that people who were poor or having difficulties would prepare.

kate

a rather talkative 4 year old, my sister told me that after so many words i would run out of speech. i thought that one day i would just open my mouth and no sound would come out. my parents found it very odd that for about a week, i didn't have much to say (in an effort to conserve my words) and finally got to the root of the problem.

evie

In elementary school, my neighbor told me that "several" meant seven. So if she said she had several Barbies, it meant she had seven of them.

She was also the one who told me that only women whose husbands have died could use the title Ms. instead of Mrs. or Miss. This is how people knew if you were widowed or not.

I believed her until I mentioned it to one of my teachers.

Jennifer

My freshman year at Georgia Tech there was a celebrity basketball
game between the Playboy Bunnies and the school's coaches.
After the game the bunnies were chatting with the huge crowd of
young men; some sitting on other's shoulders to see better. One
such fellow, being overwhelmed by thier sexyness, I presume,
bellowed out "I think I'm going to have an organism".

sideways

I pronounced "adolescent" as uh-DOLE-sent once and my mother cracked up after figuring out what I was saying.

Also around this same time in my life, I pronounced "adirondack" as uh-DEAR-on-dack. Mom again got a good laugh. However, while at my condo complex's pool this summer, I heard a woman in her 30s pronounce the word the same way. I felt superior, as I had learned the proper pronunciation years ago.

Leslie D. P.

In fifth grade, I asked my teacher what the word "ambition" means. I must have pronounced it incorrectly, or she was trying to lead me into figuring it out myself, because she asked me where I had heard it. Quoting the Dolly Parton song, "9 to 5", I replied, "like 'cup of ambition'" ("pour myself a cup of ambition"). She looked perplexed and didn't define the word for me. I don't think she listened to country music.

Leslie D. P.

You already have an entry about the word "misled" being misunderstood as a verb - to misle. I am so glad I am not the only one - for years I saw, read and pronounced the word misled as though it rhymed with 'rise'. It made perfect sense to me as a word that was something like 'weaseled'. Noone ever corrected me, but somehow I finally figured it out on my own - several years after graduating from college with both Bachelor's and Master's degrees (and one of those with a minor in English)!

Catte Nappe