words or phrases that confused you as a child ?

[Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 619
Forum Member
✭✭
I remember being really confused when ever i heard on the news talk about guerrilla warfare because obviously to a child that sounds like gorilla warfare and that just didn't make sense.
The other phrase that confused me was "eyes bigger than your belly" - that made NO sense to me as a child.
«13

Comments

  • swingalegswingaleg Posts: 102,978
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭✭
    soldier/shoulder

    according to Mum me and my brother used to dip our shoulders in our chucky eggs.....
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,567
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    When I would ask my Mum for something she deemed a luxury or a waste of money she would say " Oh , I'll dance to you m'lad " which she never ever did.
  • muggins14muggins14 Posts: 61,844
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    My Dad always used to say 'the P is silent as in swimming' ... it was many years before I understood that one :D
  • TakaeTakae Posts: 13,555
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    Waste not, want not.

    Until I was around 12, I didn't realise want was a noun as well.
  • BerBer Posts: 24,562
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    I always wondered what a 'bomzitit' was.

    As in, your room looks like a bomzitit...
  • pearlsandplumspearlsandplums Posts: 29,389
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    I thought refugees were f.u.g.s and didn't know what it stood for
  • eugenespeedeugenespeed Posts: 66,695
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    Souvenir used to throw me, even until recently.

    My dad when we used to go on day trips used to talk about bringing back a "silver-neer", I had no idea that's what he meant.

    Even to this day I still pronounce it my dad's way.
  • OdonataOdonata Posts: 1,403
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Ber wrote: »
    I always wondered what a 'bomzitit' was.

    As in, your room looks like a bomzitit...

    I was just about to post the same, although I thought it was a 'bomzi tip'.

    My mum also used to tell us to "stick it where the monkey stick his nuts". Never had any idea what she meant.
  • degsyhufcdegsyhufc Posts: 59,251
    Forum Member
    When I first read about the Galapogos I read it as galla-pogoez (as in pogo stick).

    Thought it was pronounced like that until I heard it spoken.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,535
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    degsyhufc wrote: »
    When I first read about the Galapogos I read it as galla-pogoez (as in pogo stick).

    Thought it was pronounced like that until I heard it spoken.

    i still pronounce it like that in my head.
  • seacamseacam Posts: 21,364
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Soldier and Shoulder, got my brother each and every time.

    Me, Definitely and Defiantly and I still have to check I haven't spelt " Definitely" wrong. :blush:
  • Dante AmecheDante Ameche Posts: 20,692
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    When you would hear on the news that a man was helping police with their enquires, I used to think, what a lovely man, how kind
  • Leicester_HunkLeicester_Hunk Posts: 18,316
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    muggins14 wrote: »
    My Dad always used to say 'the P is silent as in swimming' ... it was many years before I understood that one :D

    I don't understand it, have never heard it!
  • Dante AmecheDante Ameche Posts: 20,692
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    I don't understand it, have never heard it!
    That's because it's silent :p
  • BanglaRoadBanglaRoad Posts: 57,514
    Forum Member
    One that my dad used to say which made no sense at all was when I asked to go out to play on my bike he would come out with the classic "I'll give you bike boy" which confused me greatly for I already had a bike.
    I was delighted when I saw Billy Connolly telling the same story but so much better in a TV show. Maybe it was a Scottish thing
  • jrmswfcjrmswfc Posts: 5,644
    Forum Member
    My hearing isn't great, and for the first few years of Sheffield's Supertram service I thought that the automated message "the next stop, by your request..." was "the next stop, ivory crest". I just assumed the system was sponsored by a brand of butter or something.

    I was in my 20s when I discovered that the word was "scapegoat" and not "scrapegoat". I only figured it out when it was a crossword answer and I couldn't understand why the box seemed to be 1 letter short.
  • StratusSphereStratusSphere Posts: 2,813
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Not me, but I once dated someone who swore blind that it was leopards, not lepers, that Jesus associated with in the bible. But not that they were animals, just that they were called that because they were spotty...:confused::confused:
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 68,508
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    When you would hear on the news that a man was helping police with their enquires, I used to think, what a lovely man, how kind

    :D Ha ha. Until embarrassingly late in life I thought it was odd that several judges had the first name 'Justice'. I mean it's not a common first name, is it?

    When I was a child, there was an advertising slogan "You can't tell stalk from butter". I had no idea that Stalk was a margarine, and was baffled by the suggestion that people routinely confused an apple stalk with a pat of butter.

    There was also a widespread advertising campaign for a bath product calle Badedas, that went 'Things happen after a Badedas bath', and showed something like a woman in a towel standing at a window while a man on a white horse waited for her outside. I had no idea that Badedas was a kind of bath salts - had never come across such a product - and thought it was some kind of adult filthiness that I would have to learn about in biology classes in time. I was not looking forward to the days when my nice innocent baths went all badedas.
  • sej17sej17 Posts: 377
    Forum Member
    The other phrase that confused me was "eyes bigger than your belly" - that made NO sense to me as a child.

    I remember having that phrase said to me too.
  • digimon900digimon900 Posts: 4,249
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    we used to love the catalog as kids (GUS, Peter Noble, Kays, Brian Mills) but were not allowed to look through the current ones unsupervised. The old ones we could take to our rooms and drool over. I always called them the old one and the new one. My dad referred to them as 'up to date' and 'out of date' I never knew what he meant by either as they sounded the same to me!
  • viertevierte Posts: 4,286
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    When I would ask where my dad was going and he would reply "I'm going to see a man about a dog" and I always wondered what on earth could be so interesting to talk about dogs for that long, he didn't even like them!
  • Regis MagnaeRegis Magnae Posts: 6,810
    Forum Member
    I think I once tried to explain to my mum, being the science nerd I was, the meaning of the word orgasm when I actually meant organism.
  • Mountain_RunnerMountain_Runner Posts: 1,925
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    'I've a bone to pick with you'

    I used to take this literally, thinking I or someone was going to get a joint dislocated :D
  • RetroMusicFanRetroMusicFan Posts: 6,673
    Forum Member
    Ceasefire!

    When this word was mentioned on the news when I was little I used to think it was 'seas fire' and it made me think the sea was on fire!
  • muggins14muggins14 Posts: 61,844
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    I don't understand it, have never heard it!

    Well, when you pee in a pool, it's silent ;)
Sign In or Register to comment.