speaking

when i was really young i was on the potty in the hallway and my mum was standing waiting for me. she said 'hurry up, there's a terrific draught coming down the stairs.' But i thought she said 'giraffe' and i jumped up and ran away as fast as i could!

elaine

when I was about 5 years old, I entered a coloring contest. The prize was a pitcher of coke, I thought it was a picture of a coke bottle. Boy was disappointed.

maegan

okay, this is gonna sound very wrong, but I swear I believed this at like 3 or 4, tho I have no idea where I got it from.
I had the word nun confused with a certain word that is used as a derogatory racial comment, n****r. (I wont even say it now, let alone type it.) One day while my mom was on the porch sewing and talking with some of her friends, I picked up a spare piece of cloth, that was black, and put it on my head, like a nun, and exclaimed, "Look, mommy, now I am a n****r!"
My mother was horrified, and had no idea I meant nun. (One of her friends who was sitting there was black.) She told me that it was very bad and I was to never say that word again. I couldnt understand why someone I had seen at church was a bad word to say. This didnt get cleared up until I was about six and started religous education classes at school.....

Niky

One time I got in trouble for picking up a phone without asking at my grandmother's house. She yelled at me and said," You need to ask for permission before playing with things!"
I had no idea what "permission" was. I figured that it was some kind of lotion. I thought ," Why would I need lotion to play with something?"

Amber

When i was a little kid i used to believe that the word yellow was said as yeller and brat was a cuss word cause my parents told me it was! i am still also afraid of CLOWNS!

Rebecca Ckarj

I used to see that commercial advertising for the grocery store "Fiesta" when I was little...This lady would always be on the commercials and at the end she would say "FIESTA". I used to think that the lady was pronouncing it wrong and that it was really Fiester. I thought she was just putting some accent flair on the end of the word...I used to correct her out loud. I would say, "No, it's Fiester!!"

Angela

When I was a little kid we traveled long distances by car--this was in the '40s--and my parents spoke of "living out of our suitcases." I thought they were saying we were living out of our soup cases and I used to look for the cans of soup in our suitcases to no avail.

Ted

My sister was grammatically correct from the beginnng; when she was in daycare at age 3, she saw that her supervisor (Valerie) had a bruise. She, being a concerned child, stated "Valerie, you have a broo!". Valerie responded, "No, I have a BRUISE". My sister gives her a look of exasperation and says, "No, there's only one of them," much to the surprise of her supervisor.

Amanda

When I was young I always used to mix the word persecute with prostitute. Imagine how alarmed I was when i would hear my pastor talk about how we must be "persecuted" for our faith.

Anon

whenever adults used to say "the king was overthrown" i would picture in my head that they actually picked him by his clothes and threw him out of the window of the castle. and i would take other words literally too but thats just the first one i remember

christina

Once I had a most embarassing experience as a kid at my big sister's school at a game one time. And it was a booboo that many people wouldn't let me forget for a LONG time. I referred to some cheerleaders "waving their tampons around". That was because I was inclined to confuse the words "tampon" and "pompom". I even still do confuse them occasionally.

Brad

My Best friend was horrified the other day to learn that chimney isn't actually pronounced 'chimley'. She is 22.

Emma

My mother once told my niece that she was a nighthawk when she was little, as the family was staying up late to watch movies. My niece thought she called her a "night hog", and to this day, persists on calling herself a "night hog" - she's 25 years old now and we STILL can't get her to believe the term is "nighthawk".

Mojo!

I used to think that "diarrhea" was actually "ballerina"

Jessica

At 2nd grade, I changed schools, and in the new school, they called the toilet the "lavatory". I had never heard the word before, and I thought they were saying "laboratory". So on my first day at the new school, when kids said, "May I go to the lavatory?", I wondered where they were going.

I reasoned that if everyone wanted to go there, it must be some kind of room with toys.
After about a week, I finally figured it out. Boy, I was disappointed!

tabi

I used to believe that "lbs" was pronounced a bit like "libs."

Anon

that when someone called someone else a prima donna that they were calling them a pre-madonna



i believed this till i was 16

Britton

When I was little I used to think a suitcase was called a "soupcase". I called it this for many years before I figured it out and no one noticed.

John

when reciting the alphabet, i used to think that "elemeno" was a letter: L-M-N-O

davey

When I was a wee lad me Mum told me that if I called my sister or anyone a "fool" that I would burn in Hell! For years whenever I heard someone call someone else a "fool" I would think "OOooo you're going to burn in Hell"!

Lee Roi