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What Were YOUR Erroneous Childhood Beliefs?

I believed that trains used to hover/glide over the tracks and was shocked to discover they had wheels.
Possibly influenced by train sets?
Possibly you had this sort of train?!

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When i was around 5 years old, I believed I had invented the word "burp".
My eldest daughter when a tot used to make up words for things when she wasn’t sure of their real name. The three I remember clearly were
Swatnoff = Mop
Piblets = Grapes
Perfect = Cucumber

When you looked perplexed at what she was trying to say she would get increasingly frustrated and stare at you as if you had three heads.
 
My eldest daughter when a tot used to make up words for things when she wasn’t sure of their real name. The three I remember clearly were
Swatnoff = Mop
Piblets = Grapes
Perfect = Cucumber

When you looked perplexed at what she was trying to say she would get increasingly frustrated and stare at you as if you had three heads.
My two lads when they were tots had some made up words that stuck.

One used to call helicopters 'habilyoes' and the other used to say 'waddelade' for marmalade.

But funniest to me was a nephew who used to refer to Aladdin as 'A Lad in a Cave'.
 
'waddelade' for marmalade.
Talking of marmalade ... when I was little and knew the word for having a good idea was 'a brain wave' I imagined that inside our skulls was like said citrus preserve and the waves were the bits of peel that did a little wriggle and waved to each other. I've never got over the shock of discovering it's just a lump of grey stuff. :)
 
A friend told me that when he was little he had a favorite type of toy guitar - the kind made out of plastic, with nylon strings, that made some semblance of music - which he called a "dungaloo". He would wear them out, necessitating a replacement every couple of years. Didn't cause any problems until his dad went into the toy shop and said "May I have one of those dungaloos, please?"
 
My eldest daughter when a tot used to make up words for things when she wasn’t sure of their real name. The three I remember clearly were
Swatnoff = Mop
Piblets = Grapes
Perfect = Cucumber

When you looked perplexed at what she was trying to say she would get increasingly frustrated and stare at you as if you had three heads.

When I was very young I named my nan's snake shaped draft excluder 'soppy ippy'. They were from then on known as soppy ippies in our house. Not having remembered naming it that I genuinely thought that was the proper name for them until I was in secondary school.
 
My two lads when they were tots had some made up words that stuck.

One used to call helicopters 'habilyoes' and the other used to say 'waddelade' for marmalade.

But funniest to me was a nephew who used to refer to Aladdin as 'A Lad in a Cave'.

I was the originator of the alternative name for Orangutans, "Tang-orangs" as a 3 year old :)

As to other things I firmly believed as a very small child - I had no conception that rail bridges or undepasses existed.
When faced with a very occasional railway trip as a 5/6 year old, the platforms seemed very high and the tracks very deep and threatening. How would we get to the other side to get on a train if we ever needed to? I really didn't think I could jump down that far and then climb up the other side. It worried me intensely.
 
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When I was very young the railway stations used to have large picture advertisements
One I remember was of a woman about to take a drink of tea. I asked when she was actually going to drink it and as the train pulled out I was told that she had just started to drink it although I could never catch her doing it.
The whole carriage used to be in stitches although I didn't know why.
 
This may have been mentioned by someone else along the way- but I was convinced that mirrors in TV programmes, films, and probably photographs as well all acted like mirrors in real life- and you could see yourself in them if you looked at them from the right angle.

To be honest, I think I still believe that in some small way and have to consciously remind myself it isn't true.

Steev
 
When I was very young I named my nan's snake shaped draft excluder 'soppy ippy'. They were from then on known as soppy ippies in our house. Not having remembered naming it that I genuinely thought that was the proper name for them until I was in secondary school.
My middle daughter misheard 'pigeons' as 'pims'. They were (and are still) known as 'Pims' in the family.
 
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