speaking

I used to think people spoke word balloons like in comic books, and adults' word balloons were in cursive handwriting.

Amy

For me, the word "skeletons" has always been pronounced "skalingtons".

Jim

When I was little, I thought dump truck was pronounced dumb truck, better yet I thought tow truck was pronounced toad truck. Now I hate trucks.

ben

When I was little I used to call blue jeans "boondeenies".

Amy, WI

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

When sitting in the car one day, my sister complained about the meanings of so many words changing to mean something bad. When asked what she meant, she thought that 'lesbians' used to be what the little imps in Ireland were called!

Anon

When I was around 8 I thought the word rape was rake and I wondered how you would rake someone.

Anon

When I was about 6 I was so excited about going to the library. I told my Mom "Can I please get that pacific (meaning specific) Harry Potter book?" I thought specific was the same as my "Pacific Blue" Crayola crayon.

Sakura

When i was 9, i went to the graduation of a family friend. I went over to ask my mom why they kept telling people to "come loudly" and why they told some to "mega come loudly". She explained to me that they were saying "Cum Laude" and "Mega Cum Laude" and those were for the people with really good grades. That made less sense to me though since a lot of the people were walking up rather loudly.

Amber

I used to say "Suck My Blue" instead of Sacre bleu. My parents always corrected me and i never realised why.

Meaghan

I grew up in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood, and went to Catholic school. There was a family around the corner who had 3 boys that were mildy retarded. One day I asked my mother why they didn't go to the same school as me and my other friends. My mom said "because they're Jewish", without further explanation. So I made the association that "Jewish" meant "retarded", and it was years before someone cleared it up for me.

bee sting

I used to have the idea that scrimshaw was a card game.

Heather

I used to get lesbians and leprechauns mixed up.

Anon

When I was kid visiting at a friends house with my Parents, and it got late, they would say, well we have to hit the road now, and I thought they were getting ready to go out and slap the pavement.

Joanne

my son who is now 15 used to say "can i have a bowl of colins " instead of cornflakes !! WE DID NOT EVEN KNOW ANYONE CALLED COLIN so god knows where that came from,he also used to think that the postman brought the snow with him in his bag (we are from u.k where it obviously does not snow alot)

emma jane

I had heard the phrase "the thrill of the hunt" for quite sometime, thinking each time I was hearing "Attila the Hun". People were saying for example, what someone did for "the thrill of the hunt". I wondered why someone was doing the thing in question for Attila the Hun. In time I finally figured out the phrase "the thrill of the hunt".

Ron

I used to believe that the sign language used by Deaf people involved fingerspelling every word. Probably due to reading a Happy Hollister book with a Deaf character who taught the Hollister kids the finger alphabet to use for silent communication purposes in their "detective" work.

silent talker

Until I was in 5th grade, I thought that calling someone a "wannabe", was like calling someone a lesbian. This was why girls were always calling other girls "wannabe's" when they were name calling. I specifically remember saying "That girl is such a wannabe", thinking that I was saying that she wanted to kiss other girls.

Christa

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

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