Friday OT #1 - Foolish Child (Part 2)

[Angie]

Thanks so much to @MeanDean for this link! We're both pretty sure that we've done this theme before, but I can't find it or remember what we called it then. Anyway: LINK

What are your things that you misheard or misunderstood when you were a child? Like, I remember hearing things were sold "on the black market," so I assumed it was some furtive swap meet in a back alley somewhere, with someone selling stolen car parts and driver's licenses in booths.

 

[jsb]

I thought wind chill was wind shield. Honestly, I still find myself wanting to say wind shield.

 

[Sparkplug]

Houses with red doors had mortgages. Most Methodist churches have red doors so I figured they had mortgages

 

[cyclones500]

Coincidentally, here's an example I recalled a few days ago. First time I saw the word "Plymouth," I assumed it was pronounced exactly as it's spelled, Ply-Mouth.

Oddly, my dad had made previous refs to Plymouth vehicles, but I didn't connect the two.

 

[cyclones500]

Sidetrack: I considered clicking on the Useful icon for this thread, but I don't want to be passive/aggressive. (Or throw a wrench into the situation).

 

[cyclones500]

Examples of mishearing (can't recall my specific age for either):
* In "The Twelve Days of Christmas," I heard the line "and a partridge in a pear tree" as "and a par-tree jenna-pear tree."
* TV-related, first time I heard someone say Gore Vidal, I assumed his name was "Gorby Doll."

 

[madguy30]

'Hold your horses'...thought it meant someone was holding onto tiny horses behind their back.

By the way, that's not what that means.

 

[MeanDean]

This had to be 1960. I was 4. My mom would be listening to the radio and the news would come on. Lots of news about the election. They would talk about the presidential race. Being a kid, I knew what a race was. You said to your friend, "Hey, let's race to the mailbox." and it was on. And over in 30 seconds. I thought Kennedy and Nixon were running a literal race. I kept asking who won. Then after a while I thought, "Wow, they sure are running a long ways!"

Related - newscasters also talked about The White House. Our house was NOT white. I didn't know that the one they meant was 1,000 miles away. So if we were driving somewhere and there was a house that was white, I'd ask, "Is that the white house?"

 

[MeanDean]

I had never paid much attention to older actors, so it wasn't until Cocoon came out that I realized Don Ameche was a man, not a woman named Donna Meachy.

 

[MeanDean]

When I was a teenager my younger brother thought 'dildo' was just a funny sounding name to call somebody, like nerd, or turkey. Until one day he called one of the other siblings that at the evening dinner table.

It got real quiet. Until I told him, "You shouldn't use that word if you don't know what it means." Which, of course, revealed that I knew what it meant.

He just protested that it meant a goofy kid.

Awkward...

 

[cyclones500]

I remember being surprised to learn it's Raisin Bran, not Raisin Brand.

 

[BBHMagic]

I remember being surprised to learn it's Raisin Bran, not Raisin Brand.

Wait what....

 

[throwittoblythe]

This was not me, but is a great example of how kids understand things versus adults.

A young child, maybe 5 years old, was riding in the car with us. Our side mirrors have the blinking arrows on them when you're signaling a turn. This boys comment was "wow, it sure is nice that those lights tell you where to turn!" In his mind, the blinkers came on to show you where to go, not to signal to other drivers where you were going.

 

[cowgirl836]

That a serial killer was someone who stabbed boxes of Cheerios.

 

[MeanDean]

All my working life "OT" meant Over Time. So way back when I was new here and someone would start a thread on CF with that, I assumed it meant Over Time. Which sort of made sense to me, since it was extra, i.e. non-Cyclone related.

I still sometimes mentally call it that when I see an OT post.

 

[MeanDean]

That a serial killer was someone who stabbed boxes of Cheerios.

Also Raisin Brand???

 

[CtownCyclone]

Well I thought using checks to pay for things didn't mean you actually had to pay money for them.

 

[ImJustKCClone]

Well I thought using checks to pay for things didn't mean you actually had to pay money for them.

My sons were convinced that if there were still unwritten checks in the checkbook, that meant we had available money. Similar.

 

[VeloClone]

Coincidentally, here's an example I recalled a few days ago. First time I saw the word "Plymouth," I assumed it was pronounced exactly as it's spelled, Ply-Mouth.

Oddly, my dad had made previous refs to Plymouth vehicles, but I didn't connect the two.

When I was a kid I had a friend whose family had a Plymouth station wagon. The 'y' and the 'u' letters fell off the back so my buddy put them back on in reverse order so they then called the car their Plumoyth.

 

[cytor]

I recall my mother hosting her bridge club ladies at our house. 8 women playing bridge divided into 2 card tables in the living room.

I was 7 years old, chasing my 3 year old brother around the house when I tackled him near the ladies playing cards. I proceeded to wrestle him and repeatedly calling him the "C" word in front of the women. I had no clue what that word meant (heard it on the playground at school).

Needless to say, I caught a little heat for that later.