Will you tell us a silly piece of misinformation that took you an embarrassingly long time to straighten out?
Tell us what is was, when you heard it, and when you learned the real truth
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I’ll start. When I was a kid my Grandma told me that if I crossed my eyes too long they would get stuck that way. But she went one step further and told me about a little girl in her neighborhood who crossed her eyes and they got stuck. My grandma told me they took her to the doctor and the doctor had to stick needles into her eyes and pull them away from each other (I still shiver when I think about it). I didn’t learn the truth till I was 12 or 13 and I felt pretty dumb. She was dead then and I couldn’t confront her about it lol.
Hah, well…
My fraternity had nicknames for every member. Though I used to have a temporary name because nobody actually caught me on anything, there was this one time I jumped out of bed and hit a wall.
I then proposed ‘Baf’ (because of the sound it made in Dutch, like bang). I was completely happy with it, but everybody gave me a weird look when I said it. All in all, it changed. A few weeks later one of the members walked into me and told me what baffen meant.
I should have know there was something wrong when everybody gave me that look.. Baffen involves licking, and an anus..
Took me three months to change my nickname again.
For three years, I believed that the end of the world (December 12 2012) was on my 16th birthday. It actually was on my 17th.
I thought “sandwich” was “samwich” (and pronounced it as such) all the way until I saw it in a spelling book!
When I was young, for some reason I liked to pretend to be asleep. I guess I figured it would make my parents less likely to actually send me to bed at bed time or something. Well at one point, my mother told me “You know, we always know when you’re faking. When you’re actually asleep, you bend your leg and stick it in the air”.
Well from that point on, whenever I faked sleeping, I of course stuck my foot in the air. It didn’t dawn on me until my late teens the joke she’d played on me as a kid.
My mother always pined after this porcelain nativity scene that was really expensive, and one Christmas my father got it for her. Well he got it on super sale because many of the pieces were missing parts. Joesph was missing his last two fingers on one hand and one on the other. When my sisters and I asked why, my father matter-of-factly said, “Joesph was a carpenter and sometimes carpenters make mistakes. He accidentally cut his fingers off while sawing one day.” Well I believed that for years. It wasn’t until I alluded to that in front of my very pious friend when I was 18 that I found out.
There are plenty of stories like this because my father has a knack for coming up with explanations, regardless of how ridiculous, and making them sound completely legit. I embarrass myself on a daily basis because of that man.
That the sun never went down, but that the earth just revolved. xD
I don’t think I’m the only one who has made this mistake, but until 3rd or 4th grade during the Pledge of Allegiance I would say “for witches stand” instead of “for which it stands.” When my parents corrected me, I stammered and pretended I was just joking about the “witches” thing. I don’t think they believed me.
Also, remember that phrase, “you ain’t all that and a bag of chips?” I totally thought it was “you ate all that and a bag of chips.” Yeah, my sister cracked up when I told her that.
I used to always think that whatever way I was facing was North, I thought that until 4th grade when the classroom’s walls were marked with what direction they faced.
I believed that the movie “The Blair Witch Project” was based on factual events until I found out weeks later that it was all a hoax. Gullibility personified.
When I was little one of my brothers told me that the name Brian is pronounced Brain. I still see Brain every time I look at the name!
When I was little, I thought I could get an STD from coins. My grandmother saw me put a quarter or something in my mouth and ran over and smacked it out of my mouth and screamed, “Don’t ever put coins in your mouth! Men touch their dirty penises and then touch that money and you could get a disease!” That woman was terrifying. She also used to say “Do you hear that? That’s The Smurfs coming to get you…” I was scared of Smurfs for several years when everyone else my age loved them.
When I was a kid someone told me girls don’t fart. I believed this for many years. I have two brothers so no chance for enlightenment there.
For the longest time I thought my urine came out of my clitoris. No lie. I never knew there was another little hole hidden! The worst part is, my boyfriend was the one who informed me of this. Who knew the thing I thought pee came out of was actually soley meant for sexual stimulation!
When I was little, my Dad listened to KFI Talk Radio every morning when he was driving me to school. Their catch-phrase was (and still is) “More Stimulating Talk Radio.” I thought ”morstimulating” was a real word until I was about 16.
Online jargon such as, lol, what a troll is and most recently <3.
@janbb it’s a heart, turned on its side. The < is the bottom V of the heart, and the 3 is the top curves. It means whatever heart means in that context.
—@MrItty D’oh! (And thanks.)
It took me quite a few years to understand that the famous Flatiron building was pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable – I kept saying it like Flat Iron…
My mom wouldn’t tell me what rape actually meant when I was a kid just that it was awful. So for awhile I thought it must mean he peed in her!!!
@ubersiren: I have a similar grandmother who feels men’s dirty hands and dirty penises are the root of all germs spread around.
I started reading at a very young age, and learned to recognize words I could not pronounce, so I was constantly surprised when I heard the same words spoken as I got older.
It was just the opposite reaction when my parents told us we were going to a Knocksberry farm. I could not imagine what Knocksberries would taste like, then I saw the sign.
I’m surprised nobody’s brought up God yet…
@SuperMouse – I have a picture of some illiterate graffiti that reads: “I LOVE BRAIN”. I’m sure Brian isn’t with her because of her smarts…
@MacBean that really did make me laugh out loud… brilliant! xx
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