It was no dream, jali.
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=2434192005
Uncle Joe’s Funny Monkeys…are coming to get you!!!
Not a word or phrase per se, but when I was very young I could not grasp the idea of how you got on a plane. The concept of an airport never occurred to me. I assumed that the plane laded in your front yard, picked you up, and then dropped you off at the house you wanted to go to.
And those signs you see at many corners and along curbs: “No parking or standing.” I couldn’t figure out why it was illeagal to stand there. As in a person physically standing as opposed to walking. What if you had to cross the street? Would a cop really hand you a ticket for standing there? It finallly occurred to me that a car could “stand.” I was about 30 when I figured this out.
I used to think ‘jude’ was a legitimate word, meaning to bargain someone down in price.
Only when I saw it written as ‘jewed’ did I clue in that it was referring to the Jewish religion and maybe I should stop saying it.
I thought “Vacancy” had something to do with sex, and when the motel sign said “No Vacancy” it meant you couldn’t have sex there. I wasn’t entirely sure what sex was, but I was convinced it had something to do with vacancy.
I was in high school before I connected the word “couple” as in a couple of objects with the word “couple” as in two people. The two different senses of the wrod were apparently stored in two completely separate parts of my brain. I thought a couple of objects was just an indeterminate small number and didn’t associate it especially with the number two—still don’t. Ask me for a couple of M&Ms or nails or pieces of paper, and you’ll probably get between 3 and 5 unless I think about it.
I don’t know when I made the connection, but I still don’t really associate it with the number two; then again, I’m a supporter of polygamy, too.
Heh. There was a scandal here a few years ago when a city counselor let that phrase slip out during a public meeting. I can just see it–“You mean that’s a slur? I thought it was spelled ‘jude!’” :smack:
Well, I don’t know how that happened. If a mod would like to fix that coding sludge, I would be grateful.
Wait…so I can stand there?
Um… How do you pronounce it, then?
I once asked my mother where I came from. She said that God made me. I had images of myself lying on a table with my chest open, and these giant hands putting my guts in. And then the giant hand set me down in my backyard, and I ran in to the kitchen yelling “Hi mom, I’m home!”
I also used to think that when people aged, they grew taller. (It was true of kids, of course.) I figured that there must be some sort of land of the giants where my dad would soon go, because I didn’t see any giants in my neighborhood. I never wondered about where the wrinkly people came from.
I thought all women called their husbands “George” in the same way kids call their parents Mom and Dad. I believed this until I was 7 or so, and I remember that hilarity ensued when I revealed it.
I guess we knew alot of married men named George.
Well…in French, it’s pronounced “Uh-coo-truh-MON” (insert French accent here–I’m not so good with French phonetics) 
But I just went to m-w.com and darned if there isn’t an English way to pronounce it that’s just like my grandpa did it! I learn something new every day!
However, I’m kinda doubtin’ it means what he used it as, in English or French!
There is a bridge hereabouts called the Tappan Zee Bridge. (“Zee” is a Dutch word for a body of water.) A friend of mine, as a small child, of course did not know what the heck a tappanzee was, but she’d heard of chimpanzees. She says she was always secretly on the lookout for the chimpanzees when her family traveled over that bridge.
As you wish.
When I heard the term “think tank” I used to think of a place where people were locked inside until they came up with a good idea. I imagined steel doors sealed off like submarine doors, and that people were put there as a form of punishment.
Oh, I thought you had deliberately inserted the smiling Orthodox man into the quoted text as a visual pun. Guess we can chalk up his appearance in the word “jewed” to serendipity…
I was once perusing a basketball magazine and came across a reference to a wily reserve. Since I knew that the guy in question hardly ever got onto the court, I figured that “wily” was a synonym for “obscure”. Although I’ve since learned the actual definition, my brother Mike and I still may exclaim “Here come the wilies!” when a coach is clearing the bench at the end of a blowout.
I also remember reading a story about a boy who was hiking, got hungry, reached into his knapsack or pocket, and took out a candy bar which he “ate with relish”. I wondered why he was carrying a jar of a pickled condiment used on hot dogs and hamburgers, and especially why he was mixing said condiment with chocolate.
I remember thinking that sealing wax in “Of shoes, and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings” was ceiling wax. I was awfully confused about why anyone would wax ceilings. Floors, okay, but ceilings?
I thought the same thing!
And I thought this too.
In addition, I thought someone who had “a price on his head” had a literal price tag right there on his face!
Hearing about Pontius Pilate at Easter greatly confused me. First of all, I thought he was an actual pilot (though I had no idea why since I knew there were no planes them). I also thought “Pontius” was an adjective meaning “pompous.” I had no idea why a pompous pilot was even in the story.
Not me, but my daughter: I’m not at all sure how she knew the word, but my six-year-old told me that men’s privates were called nuts. As in, “Women have vaginas, men have nuts”. I explained to her that if she wanted to be accurate, she should use the word penis. She thought for a minute, and said, “Peanuts?” I was laughing too hard to correct her.
Remember when that screen would come up on your TV that said, “We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties – Please Stand By”? I always obediently did so – as I recall, a little to the right of the TV.
And I long believed that somewhere in northern Wisconsin was a small but popular town named “Business Dist.” Every time we drove to visit my grandparents (both sets of which lived up that way), I saw signs pointing the way to Business Dist in every burg. But we never actually drove through Business Dist itself.