speaking

When I was young, I didn't know my language was called, "English". I thought it was called, "Normal". When the gardner at my grandma's house would speak strangely in words I'd never heard before, I'd ask him why he didn't speak, "Normal". He'd laugh and say it was called, "Spanish". Sometimes when he'd speak in Spanish to his co-workers, I'd watch his lips & tounge, but only from a distance, because I was afraid his tounge might fly out from moving so fast!!

Zac C.

there's such thing as "soul-security"( social security )
because of the way my stupid parents pronounce it

elizabeth

I used to think that the jokes ... to screw in a light bult ment that that the people actually had to SCREW inside the lightbulb. I've thought this for many many years.

haha

Acctually, this is about a girl in my clas. She thought you said ,"Blesh you." instead of "Bless you." No lie, she just learned it yesterday.

Anon

when i was young i always pronounced nipples as nickles my mother thought it was cute and never told me otherwise i assumed everyone else used the same word right up until year 6 when we began sex education the teacher pointed to the nipples asked what they were and i said nickled the class laughed at me and i was very angry with my mother

donna

At the end of Sesame street when they say "brought to you by the letter so and so" I thought "brought to you" was all one word spelled "broqued."

Anon

when my boyfriend's older brother was little he used to think gross and weird was one word so anytime something was gross or weird he called it grossweird he's almost 19, and he still gets made fun of.

kids are silly

My best friend and i were talking one day and i mentioned that my boyfriend's sister was "as pure as the driven snow". My friend said, "Don't you mean the UN-driven snow? It gets pretty dirty after you drive on it." I guess she thought the phrase meant someone was on longer pure, like snow that has been driven over with a vehicle. I tried not to laugh as i explain that it was driven as is blown by the wind, not driven like a car.

Rachel Gordon's friend

I thought that "Oh, the humanity!" was an exclamation meant for pointing out that something was very humanlike.

Anon

I thought that polystyrene was pronounced 'polly-STEE-LEE-an'.

Polly Stairiin

My dad often says, "Is it _____ or what?" When I was little I thought I had to say "what" if it wasn't the "blank". For example if he said "Is it funny or what?" I thought I had to say "what" if I didn't think it was funny. I took things very literally back then. I think I actually did have to answer with "what" once!

Molly

I used to believe that cosmic was the same word as cosmetic and wondered how stuff in space was related to makeup and beauty products.

Anon

As slow as a wet week.....
For most of my childhood I believed that a week was a small long haired animal which had trouble in the rain.

discocat

i used to pronounce the name sean as seen for years right up untill i was at least 16 yrs untill my mum corrected me when i announced that my idol maddonna had married seen peen my mother was in fits of laughter for at least a week..

kellie

When I was 4/5 I switched the meanings of hump (the verb) and
noogie (rubbing someone's head with knucles). I told my dad that
the dog was giving him a noogie by rubbing his leg up and down
and would yell at my brothers to stop humping my head.

klah

Once, when my sister an I were about 6 and 8, my mother grew exasperated with our unruly behavior and said, "You could try the patience of Job." I thought she said, "You could fry the potatoes of Joe," I was puzzled by why she wanted me to fry potatoes, and repeated that back to her asking what she meant. She started laughing. After that, it became a family inside-joke.

Kdees

I used to believe that priceless and worthless ment the same thing. So whenever we went to someone's house and they would describe the artifact as "priceless", i used to wonder why are they so proud of it?

Anon

I have a little cousin who for the longest time was convinced that a "pervert" meant a dead fish... it sure was funny to hear her call her younger brother a pervert whenever he did something stupid... "Gabe, you're about as smart as a pervert!" ... I guess the statement is still a viable insult, though

Maeve

I was watching the news with my mom when I was about 6 or 7, and heard about a woman getting raped, or "ranked", as I heard it.
A few weeks later at a boyscout meeting, we were given patches for our uniforms saying Rank ??. After the meeting I built up enough courage to pull thee scout leader aside and tell him i wasnt going to wear the patch because ranking someone was very bad, as my mom told me. I still remember the puzzled look on his face.

murph

I used to believe that when someone said that a woman had been raped, it meant that a stranger had run up to her in the street and scraped at her skin with a cheese grater. In public school, a couple of older girls consistantly picked on me, and when I told my mom about it, she told me that I needed to stand up for myself. So I asked her if I could take her cheese grater to school. When she asked me why, I told her that I was going to rape them. Horrified, she asked me to explain, and when I was finished, she was laughing so hard that she had to sit down on the floor. Then she (very carefully) explained what it really meant. Even now (20 odd years later), if we're joking around and I'm getting mouthy, she pulls out her cheese grater and threatens to "rape" me.

Jenna