# I once mistakenly believed ... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 14, 2005, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060 "2005-02-14T19:24:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2005, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/81 "2005-02-15T21:24:12Z")
I asked my father if I was supposed to sing _God Bless America_ when everybody in the whole country sneezed at the same time. I thought that my body was hollow inside, and that the food I ate tumbled down to my feet, where it found its way back into the ground through little doors in my soles that only opened when I walked. I thought that Mrs. Claus’s name was Eve. You know, Christmas Eve. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2005, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/82 "2005-02-15T21:37:45Z")
> [@Kizarvexius](#): > > \ > I thought that Mrs. Claus’s name was Eve. You know, Christmas Eve. 🙂 I’m particularly amused with that one. May I have permission to work it into a story if I’m ever so inclined? ---
**Author:** ![Burrido](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Burrido](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Burrido)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2005, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/83 "2005-02-15T21:47:39Z")
When I was 11, I thought a quarter past Noon, was 12:25 pm. ---
**Author:** ![ioioio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ioioio/32/316_2.png) [@ioioio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ioioio)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2005, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/84 "2005-02-15T21:53:33Z")
I grew up in small midwestern towns where diversity meant you had both a Baptist and a Methodist church in town. When I was 15 we moved to the big city (pop. 30,000). I was stunned to learn that there were several Jewish kids in my class. I thought that the Jews, like the Hittites and Moabites, were a group of people mentioned in the Old Testament who had quietly faded away long before my time. I also had never seen a black person, an Asian, or a Hispanic. If you’ve never lived in a small midwestern town, this information may shed some light on the political views of that part of the country. ---
**Author:** ![MercyStreet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a9adbd/32.png) [@MercyStreet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MercyStreet)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2005, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/85 "2005-02-15T22:05:20Z")
… that the Easter Bunny could see what I was doing at any time, anywhere. So whenever I was naughty, I would whisper, “Sorry, Easter Bunny!” to ensure I would get an Easter basket that year. ---
**Author:** ![MercyStreet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a9adbd/32.png) [@MercyStreet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MercyStreet)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2005, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/86 "2005-02-15T22:15:43Z")
… that throwing away food was GOOD for the poor, because they would go through the dump and find all the nice stuff we’d left for them. … that the Easter Bunny could see what I was doing any time, anywhere. So whenever I was naughty, I would whisper, “Sorry, Easter Bunny!” to ensure I would get an Easter basket that year. … that God looked like the Statue of Liberty. … that on film, whenever someone had to jump off a building or crash a car, the director cast an actor who wanted to die. … that on a three-speed bicycle, pedaling backwards for no reason would “strip the gears.” … that shell-shaped pasta contained live snails. … that Lee Harvey Oswald was kind of a cutie. … that babies just kind of happened. A couple got married and after awhile, boom – pregnancy! ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2005, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/87 "2005-02-15T22:21:25Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > 🙂 I’m particularly amused with that one. May I have permission to work it into a story if I’m ever so inclined? Go right ahead. No cite necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2005, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/88 "2005-02-15T23:00:51Z")
I used to think bacon came from a kangaroo. I used to think cats and rabbits and mice were all best friends, because I loved them all. When my mom told me cats ate mice (and probably rabbits too, if they could), I cried and cried. I had written stories about visiting “The Land of Cats and Rabbits” when I was really little. When my dad got mad, I thought he was calling people “ass-holds.” Before I had ever tried pizza, when I’d see people eating pizza on TV commercials and they’d pull out strands of cheese with each bite, I thought those strands of cheese were spaghetti. On a related note, we never ate Spaghetti-Os in my house, but when I saw a new canned product next to them called Pizza-Os, I begged my mom to buy it. She relented, and I was terribly disappointed to find out they weren’t tiny chewy bites of pizza in “O” shapes, much like the “pizza bagels” you can buy from the frozen food case today. The damn things weren’t that different from Spaghetti-Os! I thought for years that if you stuck your hand up into a moving ceiling fan, the blades would chop your hand off like they were razor-sharp metal blades. It was many years before I realized the fan blades would just whack you, but not sever limbs. By the time I was in high school, I thought only criminals, gang members, and assorted punks did drugs. When I finally got invited to a party in 11th grade (I was unpopular), I was STUNNED to see suburban, high-achieving kids from my Advanced Placement classes smoking pot. I thought I was in the Twilight Zone, and felt very uncomfortable being at that party! It really had never occurred to me that “normal,” everyday people might smoke pot. Now I still hate being around people doing drugs, but now it’s based on a personal choice rather than complete ignorance and having been a sheltered teen. ---
**Author:** ![Indyellen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/indyellen/32/4176_2.png) [@Indyellen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indyellen)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2005, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/89 "2005-02-15T23:19:24Z")
Well, let’s see… When I was much younger, I thought the lyrics from “Winter Wonderland” included the phrase “Later on, we’ll perspire, as we dream by the fire.” Perspire-\>fire made perfect sense. When I was somewhat older, but not much, I always wondered why Pink Floyd was singing about “The Dukes of Hazard are in the classroom” (no dark sarcasm in the classroom.) I was probably older still when I realized that you don’t in-dict (phonetic pronounciation) someone, you in-dite (correct pronunciation) someone. I also thought they were two different things that lawyers could do. Hrm. That’s all I can think of right now. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/90 "2005-02-16T01:32:16Z")
[QUOTE=Winnie] In the song **Silent Night** , I thought the lyrics went “Ground yon virgin…” instead of Round yon virgin. My family recently viewed an old videotape of me and my cousins singing this song together at Christmas about 20 years ago and thought it was the height of hilarity.QUOTE] How about “Round John Virgin”? José, can you see, by the dawn’s early light? ---
**Author:** ![PastAllReason](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f07891/32.png) [@PastAllReason](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastAllReason)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/91 "2005-02-16T09:46:33Z")
I used to wonder why people would wax ceilings…“of shoes, and ships and ceiling wax, and cabbages and kings”. Sigh. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eada6e/32.png) [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/92 "2005-02-16T11:49:55Z")
I thought it was seg-way, not segue. I thought foolscap referred to lined A4 paper. I thought that when you shaved your hair grew back darker and thicker. And yes, [pandads are bears](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/03/26/SC40EDS.DTL). [Australia, the largest island, yet smallest continent.](http://www.dfat.gov.au/aib/island_continent.html) ---
**Author:** ![Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eada6e/32.png) [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/93 "2005-02-16T11:52:14Z")
And pansons are bears too, :smack: \*pandas ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/94 "2005-02-16T14:02:58Z")
My grandma always had her big mason jar of honey, old dried honey caked on the outside, and a piece of honeycomb floating around inside. Since honey seemed to crystalize as it dried to my young scientific mind it was obvious that a jar of honey, left open, would dry into a honeycomb. I was so certain I was correct that I never even bothered trying to explain my thesis to my mom. ---
**Author:** ![ioioio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ioioio/32/316_2.png) [@ioioio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ioioio)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/95 "2005-02-16T14:30:13Z")
The first time I asked my mom where babies came from, she told me that babies came when a man and a woman prayed. I quit praying. It does, however, shed some light on the saying, “The family that prays together stays together.” ---
**Author:** ![LuckiestGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@LuckiestGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LuckiestGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/96 "2005-02-16T15:54:22Z")
Like someone before me I thought the people were in the TV’s and radios and of course doing it live! When I was eleven my mother described a virgin as a lady who hasn’t had a baby yet. This was fine until later years when I defended a ‘friendly’ girl in our school using this arguement… oops My Blog _[Don’t laugh so hard, it may be funny but it’s also my life](http://luckiestguy.blogspot.com/)_ Lucky ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/97 "2005-02-16T16:06:12Z")
Up until just a few years ago I thought the band name **The Beatles** simply referred to the bug of the same name. Then someone told me that the bug is spelled be **e** tle, and the band name is spelled Be **a** tles. He said, “Notice ‘be **a** t’ in place of ‘be **e** t’? Kinda clever, huh?” “Oh, wow, I never realized that…” :smack: ---
**Author:** ![williamweigand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b3f665/32.png) [@williamweigand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/williamweigand)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/98 "2005-02-16T16:08:53Z")
I grew up in a small upstate New York town that, at that time, had no black people. When we had an African-American boy from NYC staying with us one summer (Fresh Air Kid), I thought he would become white after we went swimming. When my parents would say someone was a lawyer I thought they were saying liar. In Sunday school, when the teacher asked us where overseas we’d like to visit, and why, I said “Hollywood - to see movie stars”. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/99 "2005-02-16T16:33:30Z")
> [@williamweigand](#): > > When my parents would say someone was a lawyer I thought they were saying liar. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060/100 "2005-02-16T16:41:59Z")
I guess this was a case of just not thinking very critically about something, but until quite recently, I thought that the Amazons of Greek mythology were somehow connected with the Amazon area of South America, despite the Americas not having been discovered for another 1500 years or so. I always figured that the Amazons were mythical and that therefore someone eventually decided that the Amazon basin was where they came from. It turns out that the original Amazons supposedly dwelt somewhere near the Black Sea. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-once-mistakenly-believed/290060.md?page=6)