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When I was about 7 years old, my father brought me to his work to sing Christmas carols to his colleagues. I was thrilled to get them into the holiday spirit (and loved the attention of having everyone listen to my beautiful voice), so I belted out each song loud and proud. And while singing Feliz Navidad (a classic), I confidently sang the line “prospero año y felicidad” as “prospero baño y felicidad”. If you’re not familiar with Spanish, instead of “year”, I was saying bathroom.
As mortifying as this experience was for child Adelaide, it’s a great story to tell today. And apparently, it is incredibly common for kids to hilariously misunderstand adults. Reddit users have been sharing the common words and phrases they misunderstood as children, and their stories are much more hilarious than mine.
We’ve gathered some of the best ones down below, including some you may be embarrassed to admit you can relate to, so be sure to upvote all of your favorites. Let us know in the comments if you or your little ones were ever confused by any of these terms or sayings, and then if you’re interested in checking out another Bored Panda article featuring adorable ways kids misunderstand adults, look no further than right here.
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#1
Euthanize. I thought it was youth-anise, and meant to make someone younger. Telling gramma she needed to be Euthanized did not go over well during Christmas dinner
RELATED:
#2
When I was young my father said to me:
"Knowledge is Power....Francis Bacon"
I understood it as "Knowledge is power, France is Bacon".
For more than a decade I wondered over the meaning of the second part and what was the surreal linkage between the two? If I said the quote to someone, "Knowledge is power, France is Bacon" they nodded knowingly. Or someone might say, "Knowledge is power" and I'd finish the quote "France is Bacon" and they wouldn't look at me like I'd said something very odd but thoughtfully agree. I did ask a teacher what did "Knowledge is power, France is bacon" mean and got a full 10 minute explanation of the Knowledge is power bit but nothing on "France is bacon". When I prompted further explanation by saying "France is Bacon?" in a questioning tone I just got a "yes". at 12 I didn't have the confidence to press it further. I just accepted it as something I'd never understand.
It wasn't until years later I saw it written down that the penny dropped
Balso Steele 2 years ago
Damn, you guys are really digging into the bottom of the barrel. This was originally posted in 2010.
#3
Growing up Catholic, there were times in Mass when the congregation would say "Thanks be to God". Well I heard "Thanks Speedy God" and assumed we were applauding his fast delivery on prayers.
#4
Death Sentence.
I thought that the executioner actually spoke a sentence into your ear that killed you if you heard it. I figured that's why he wore a hood, so that no one could read his lips.
#5
When I was a young lad, I was helping my Grandpa with chores around the barn. When we cleaned up, he brought out an air compressor to blow out the dust on the floor, he would call this a "Blow job" and would say s**t like, "C'mon, Tantantheman74, let's give this barn a blowjob!" Come Monday morning, my kindergarten teacher asks me what I did on the weekend, to which I replied, "Oh, Grandpa and I did a blowjob in the barn!" My momma told me this story the other day and I am honestly not even mad at that joke, Grandpa is a clever old bastard.
#6
When I was five years old my dog ran away. One night while the dog was still missing, I overheard my mother say the following while cutting a roast: "This is one tough puppy". I FREAKED out. Nothing she said could convince me that she hadn't cooked my beloved dog. Lucky for her, my dog came home that night.
#7
My dad was a lawyer and when I was about 9 this boy in class said angrily, 'you're going to be a prostitute when you're old!' I thought he meant prosecute and assumed it was a law job and I nodded my head enthusiastically, ' Yes! Yes! I'm gonna be a prostitute and work for my dad' Following day my parents had one of those formal after school meetings and I only recently connected the dots.
#8
Don Quixote. I misunderstood it as "Donkey Hotay" and thought it was about the adventures of a donkey named Hotay.
#9
I always thought Alzheimer's disease was "Old Timer's disease." Mostly because it happened to old timers and that made sense to me.
#10
I thought "Amen" was said at the end of a prayer to mirror what God would say when he looked down, "Aaah! Men".
#11
I always thought that Right Said Fred's song 'I'm Too Sexy' was about his love for the number 264.
I'm... two sixty four. My shirt: two sixty four. My car: two sixty four. Etc.
Anne Jones 2 years ago
Mis hearing song words is hilarious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UiuygmkHuA
#12
I thought they were called 'girl cheese sandwiches' and wondered why since boys ate them too.
#13
When I was six, I understood what the phrase "_____ nut" (health nut, fitness nut, etc) meant, but I assumed you could swap out the word "nut" for anything else and it would still make sense.
So one day, when my mother wasn't letting me have enough cookies, I called her a "nutrition horse."
This would have been fine EXCEPT I had a speech impediment and couldn't pronounce the letter "s" at the time.
So I ended up, quite literally, calling my mother "a nutrition wh**e."
It took me 12 years to realize why she had been so mad about that one.
#14
I thought women took actual showers with their babies at baby showers. My mom kept asking me if I wanted to go with her to one and I always said no because I didn't want to share a shower with my mom and people think I was a baby. Later I learned its because you get "showered" with gifts and I was sad about all the chicken salad I missed out on.
#15
Not only as a child, but wellllllllllll into adulthood - only to be corrected by my wife and forever mocked since - I swear to god I thought it was "endsmeat" as in a really cheap meat dish.
*we were so poor we couldn't make endsmeat*
#16
For some reason I thought the word "sucker" was a compliment. One time a lady at the bank gave me a lollipop and I said, "A sucker from a sucker, right Mom?"
#17
"If 'so and so' is going to go jump off a bridge, are you going to go to?"
My mom said this to me when I wanted to do something just because my friend was going to go do it. I took it literally and was really excited to go bridge jumping. I put on my swimsuit and packed a little beach bag, went downstairs and asked my mom if she was ready to take me over to her house to go bridge jumping.
#18
Guerilla warfare: the first few times I heard this, I imagined the army was giving machine guns to great apes.
#19
I thought when you moved somewhere, you had to find a person in that town who needed to move to your town and then swap homes with them
Anne Jones 2 years ago
That can happen in the UK if you are a Council tenant. It’s called a housing exchange.
#20
I thought mental as in "You're mental." meant sane so when a kid in third grade said that to me I looked him dead in the eyes and said "Yeah, I am." I only realized much later that it probably made me look even more unhinged.
#21
My dad's friend said his hairline was receding. I thought he meant "re-seeding", like he was growing more hair. I said, "Hopefully it doesn't seed too much. You don't want to look like a werewolf."
#22
For the longest time when I was little I used to think "Jesus Christ!" was "cheesy crust"... I was pretty confused in church. It wasn't until halfway through first grade did I actually confront my mother about it and ask why they kept talking about toast.
#23
When I was like 5 or 6, one of my dad's friends said that he was going to get a boxing match on *pay-per-view*, and I asked, "Why do you want to watch it on paper? It would look better on TV."
#24
I used to think that news reporting of a "body" or "bodies" being found or recovered excluded "head". I was horrified that all of these corpses had been beheaded and the heads were still missing.
#25
I always thought "Euthanasia" was "Youth in Asia" and couldn't figure out why it was a big controversial issue. Yeah there are kids living in asia, so what?
#26
I thought "human being" was "human bean" because of my parents' accent. Was always confused as to why I was a bean.
#27
When I was little, I thought "drinking and driving" meant the physical act of drinking a beverage, not just alcohol. One day when I was 6 I told my mother not to drink and drive while she sipped a Diet Pepsi and she just laughed at me
#28
I thought everyone lived to the exact same age. Like my brother taunted me for being three years younger than him, but in my mind it was no sweat because I was gonna be alive for 3 years after he died.
#29
My school had us selling chocolate bars as a fund raiser. I thought the guy was calling it a FUN raiser. I was very confused as to how this was supposed to be increasing the level of fun at the school. If anything it was making me have less fun.
#30
I thought for a couple months when I was young that when you said "it's a quarter past five" it meant 5:25 since a quarter was 25 cents. I proceeded to use dime and nickel to reference time
the Return of Bruno 2 years ago
There's a YouTube clip about a guy complaining about only getting fifteen minutes on a parking meter when he paid for a quarter hour. You can tell by how fast he understands his mistake when the reporter contradicts him that he's not actually an idiot, but wow, did he feel like one.
#31
Simply Prima donna I had never seen it writen down and was convinced it ment a time before Madonna was born
#32
When I heard phrases like "smoking kills" as a kid I genuinely thought you would just drop dead randomly. So when my dad would be smoking his cigarette I would start crying because I thought there was a chance he would just up and disappear.
#33
I used to mix up terrorist and tourist when I was younger and whenever I went to a foreign place I'd say "I'm a terrorist!"
Greta Kolding 2 years ago
You would never have been allowed into the USA, even if you were only 3 yo
#34
Pubic - always thought it was'public' and it just never made any sense....
#35
Black and white videos/pictures, I thought that people used to only see in black and white and that I was lucky to have the ability to see all the colours
Greta Kolding 2 years ago
Children often believe that the world used to be in black and white when they see old films and photos.
#36
God Bless You.
I always heard people just say it quick and assumed for the longest time it was "gablesh you."
I was definitely not raised religious.
Psychopathic Shark 2 years ago
I always thought it was bleshoe and though it was something to do with shoes
#37
Keep your nose clean. There was a line in a movie I was watching when I was six that was something like, "He's involved in all these illegal things but somehow still manages to keep his nose clean." and I thought it referred to nose picking so I thought it was hilarious. Like, this guy is super busy being a criminal but he still finds the time to mine for nose gold.
#38
i thought for a very (almost too long) time that an "only child" was pronounced "lonely child" because they had no siblings.
#39
Somehow I understood that mannequins in department stores were made from real people. My mom couldn't understand why I stayed so close when we went shopping
#40
"When I was growing up".
Adults use it to refer to their childhood, but I didn't understand that childhood to adulthood was a gradual transition. I thought it was a "Mario mushroom" type event that occurs at some point, only lasting a few seconds, and that all these "when I was growing up" stories all happened in those few seconds.
What do you think ?
Panda in the Fake South 2 years ago
I know no one ever looks down here but anyway. When I learned that plants were alive I threw a full on occupy the back yard when my dad was mowing the grass. I layed down crying and screaming and refused to move because I thought he was hurting the living grass. He had to drag me inside and told me it was like giving the grass a haircut.
the Return of Bruno 2 years ago
A visual pun: my brother used to think that Winnebagos had a swimming pool on the roof, because of the pool ladder up the side.
Greta Kolding 2 years ago
My childhood home was on a dirt road and I often thought how nice it would be if it was asphalt. My dad explained that asphalt was put on in patches. Somehow my 3 year old brain had the idea that you could do it with a piece of cloth (a patch) and decided I might do it one day if I found the time.
LapCat 2 years ago (edited)
Once when I was really little, I vividly remember my mom driving my brother and I through a torrential downpour to get home. There was a large puddle in the road in front of us. My older brother said “mom, just drive through it!” To which mom replied “no, my car will STOLE!” She was saying “stall” but her accent made it sound like STOLE. So for my 5-year-old self, the word “stall” was not yet in my vocabulary and I was left terrified that someone would emerge from the puddle and steal our car if we drove through it.
Dynein 2 years ago
There's a typical southern German greeting: "Grüß Gott". The sloppy pronunciation always sounded to me (and still does!) like "Friss Gott" (devour god). Though I always understood that no-one could possibly really mean that, so I assumed that "friss" in that context must have another meaning that I was unaware of.
René Sauer 2 years ago
The german word for the intestine is Darm. A stomach bug (With diarrhea and stomach-ache) Is a magen-darm-infekt. As a Kid I always thought It was Magen-Dame-infekt and thus something only women would get.
kool mudkips 2 years ago
I always thought we lived inside the earth. I just assumed we would fall off if we were on the outside. I thought the sun and the molten core of the Earth were the same thing. I remember always thinking stars were bright lights on in cities across the inside of the earth from us. I would always wave at the sky thinking maybe with a telescope, someone in China would see me. I discovered in 4th grade we were on the outside of the planet. I learned about gravity but it was extremely stressful. I was just certain at any moment, we would all just fall off of the Earth. It is funny now but, I had a whole belief on how the Earth, space, and stars worked. I was soo wrong.
and_a_touch_of_the_’tism 2 years ago
We’ve always had dogs, and when I was little we would tell our dog ‘that’ll do” when we were done playing fetch… I didn’t realize it wasn’t daddle-doo until I was like twelve… XD
Huddo's sister 2 years ago
Some of these, while funny, would not be as easy to mistake if kids weren't hearing them in an American accent. I wonder what ones Aussie kids mistake the most?
Alicia Davidson 2 years ago
I was raised in a Christian household. We would sing the hymn "Love Lifted Me" in church. When my sister was 3-4, she obviously could not read and thought we were singing "Oh, Lift a Knee." Of course, she would go around singing it after the service, too, so everyone could hear her version.
Poppy 2 years ago
When I was a kid my mum and aunt used to take me to the local putting green in the summer months in the evening for a bit of fun. On the way back we'd stop at the Off Licence (for those who don't know, in the UK an Off Licence is essentially a liquor store. On licence was a bar or pub where people drank alcohol 'on licenced premises' and Off Licence was to buy alcohol to take away) so I could get a bar of chocolate or some sweets. I thought because this was where we went after playing golf it was called the Golf Licence (or in my head the goff licence).
Tenacious Squirrel 2 years ago
Saw a TV show when I was a kid where a barrister said “I rest my case” and was successful. I thought it was “I arrest my case” - as in they’d shown enough evidence to (re)arrest the guy and send him to prison. I heard someone use the same thing in an argument, so I used to go round saying “I arrest my case” anytime I had a difference of opinion with people 😆
No Name 1 year ago
In 8th grade we did a group project on culture in the time of the Korean War. At one point, a teammate read off a list of popular dances, and she finished without mentioning one that came up in my reading and that i was pretty sure i wrote down. So immediately after she finished her list, I filled in the missing entry: "And lap dancing!" Apparently I was the only one in class who didn't know what it was because everyone burst out laughing to my total befuddlement. Except the teacher. She just gave me a sort of pitying eye roll.
Erin 1 year ago
I mixed up the words lesbian and libertarian. I also thought “frisbee” was “roast beef” and I mixed up “chicken” and “kitchen”. I also thought then when mosquitoes bit you, the reason it left a bump was because the mosquito was burrowed under your skin just drinking for days. I would try to push on the bumps because I thought if I made them uncomfortable, they would leave.
Emily Pike 2 years ago (edited)
When I was about 12 (as in old enough to know better, considering how much I liked reading and wordplay) I thought the line (from Lewis Carrol “The time has come”, the walrus said, “to talk of many things. Of ships and sails and sealing wax and cabbages and kings.”) about sealing wax was about ceiling wax and I wondered aloud "Why would you need or want to wax your ceiling?". I was not unfamiliar with homophones as a child, so I remember being embarrassed that I was confused about this.
gas station cola 2 years ago (edited)
when i was little, i got the words empire/emperor & umpire confused. i couldn't imagine why an umpire was ruling a nation or why an emporer or even an entire empire would be enforcing the rules for different sports.
Deb Johnston 2 years ago
As a child we sang a song in church called "There is a Balm in Gilead" and I thought they were saying "There is a Bob in Gilead"... who the heck is Bob?
Binky Melnik 1 year ago
Just this week, someone in a forum I hang out in said that Conor McGregor had made a “self-defecating remark.” I corrected him while laughing, but I’m secretly gonna use it from now on because it’s hilarious! (Though there really isn’t any other way to defecate than doing it yourself. 😀) (But McGregor prolly pays someone to do it for him in an ill-fitting designer suit. 🙄)
Visiezonuo Metha 1 year ago (edited)
There is a song by Jeremy Zucker: talk is overrated and there is a line that goes something like “talk is overrated, let’s just vibe”. And my ex thought it was “let’s just fight”. We had a good laugh when he narrated it to me 🤭
Misty Matejka 1 year ago
When I was little my dad used to say, he would thump me upside my gourd if I didn't stop, whatever it was that I was doing. So one day in school, my teacher asked if anyone knew what a gourd was, and my hand goes flying up oh oh I know, I know. To which I say it's your head. Teacher couldn't stop laughing. But I didn't know why? Fast forward to parent teacher conference and she retells the story. My parents got a laugh and then told me why everyone kept laughing at me. The story is still a joke in my family.
Panda in the Fake South 2 years ago
I know no one ever looks down here but anyway. When I learned that plants were alive I threw a full on occupy the back yard when my dad was mowing the grass. I layed down crying and screaming and refused to move because I thought he was hurting the living grass. He had to drag me inside and told me it was like giving the grass a haircut.
the Return of Bruno 2 years ago
A visual pun: my brother used to think that Winnebagos had a swimming pool on the roof, because of the pool ladder up the side.
Greta Kolding 2 years ago
My childhood home was on a dirt road and I often thought how nice it would be if it was asphalt. My dad explained that asphalt was put on in patches. Somehow my 3 year old brain had the idea that you could do it with a piece of cloth (a patch) and decided I might do it one day if I found the time.
LapCat 2 years ago (edited)
Once when I was really little, I vividly remember my mom driving my brother and I through a torrential downpour to get home. There was a large puddle in the road in front of us. My older brother said “mom, just drive through it!” To which mom replied “no, my car will STOLE!” She was saying “stall” but her accent made it sound like STOLE. So for my 5-year-old self, the word “stall” was not yet in my vocabulary and I was left terrified that someone would emerge from the puddle and steal our car if we drove through it.
Dynein 2 years ago
There's a typical southern German greeting: "Grüß Gott". The sloppy pronunciation always sounded to me (and still does!) like "Friss Gott" (devour god). Though I always understood that no-one could possibly really mean that, so I assumed that "friss" in that context must have another meaning that I was unaware of.
René Sauer 2 years ago
The german word for the intestine is Darm. A stomach bug (With diarrhea and stomach-ache) Is a magen-darm-infekt. As a Kid I always thought It was Magen-Dame-infekt and thus something only women would get.
kool mudkips 2 years ago
I always thought we lived inside the earth. I just assumed we would fall off if we were on the outside. I thought the sun and the molten core of the Earth were the same thing. I remember always thinking stars were bright lights on in cities across the inside of the earth from us. I would always wave at the sky thinking maybe with a telescope, someone in China would see me. I discovered in 4th grade we were on the outside of the planet. I learned about gravity but it was extremely stressful. I was just certain at any moment, we would all just fall off of the Earth. It is funny now but, I had a whole belief on how the Earth, space, and stars worked. I was soo wrong.
and_a_touch_of_the_’tism 2 years ago
We’ve always had dogs, and when I was little we would tell our dog ‘that’ll do” when we were done playing fetch… I didn’t realize it wasn’t daddle-doo until I was like twelve… XD
Huddo's sister 2 years ago
Some of these, while funny, would not be as easy to mistake if kids weren't hearing them in an American accent. I wonder what ones Aussie kids mistake the most?
Alicia Davidson 2 years ago
I was raised in a Christian household. We would sing the hymn "Love Lifted Me" in church. When my sister was 3-4, she obviously could not read and thought we were singing "Oh, Lift a Knee." Of course, she would go around singing it after the service, too, so everyone could hear her version.
Poppy 2 years ago
When I was a kid my mum and aunt used to take me to the local putting green in the summer months in the evening for a bit of fun. On the way back we'd stop at the Off Licence (for those who don't know, in the UK an Off Licence is essentially a liquor store. On licence was a bar or pub where people drank alcohol 'on licenced premises' and Off Licence was to buy alcohol to take away) so I could get a bar of chocolate or some sweets. I thought because this was where we went after playing golf it was called the Golf Licence (or in my head the goff licence).
Tenacious Squirrel 2 years ago
Saw a TV show when I was a kid where a barrister said “I rest my case” and was successful. I thought it was “I arrest my case” - as in they’d shown enough evidence to (re)arrest the guy and send him to prison. I heard someone use the same thing in an argument, so I used to go round saying “I arrest my case” anytime I had a difference of opinion with people 😆
No Name 1 year ago
In 8th grade we did a group project on culture in the time of the Korean War. At one point, a teammate read off a list of popular dances, and she finished without mentioning one that came up in my reading and that i was pretty sure i wrote down. So immediately after she finished her list, I filled in the missing entry: "And lap dancing!" Apparently I was the only one in class who didn't know what it was because everyone burst out laughing to my total befuddlement. Except the teacher. She just gave me a sort of pitying eye roll.
Erin 1 year ago
I mixed up the words lesbian and libertarian. I also thought “frisbee” was “roast beef” and I mixed up “chicken” and “kitchen”. I also thought then when mosquitoes bit you, the reason it left a bump was because the mosquito was burrowed under your skin just drinking for days. I would try to push on the bumps because I thought if I made them uncomfortable, they would leave.
Emily Pike 2 years ago (edited)
When I was about 12 (as in old enough to know better, considering how much I liked reading and wordplay) I thought the line (from Lewis Carrol “The time has come”, the walrus said, “to talk of many things. Of ships and sails and sealing wax and cabbages and kings.”) about sealing wax was about ceiling wax and I wondered aloud "Why would you need or want to wax your ceiling?". I was not unfamiliar with homophones as a child, so I remember being embarrassed that I was confused about this.
gas station cola 2 years ago (edited)
when i was little, i got the words empire/emperor & umpire confused. i couldn't imagine why an umpire was ruling a nation or why an emporer or even an entire empire would be enforcing the rules for different sports.
Deb Johnston 2 years ago
As a child we sang a song in church called "There is a Balm in Gilead" and I thought they were saying "There is a Bob in Gilead"... who the heck is Bob?
Binky Melnik 1 year ago
Just this week, someone in a forum I hang out in said that Conor McGregor had made a “self-defecating remark.” I corrected him while laughing, but I’m secretly gonna use it from now on because it’s hilarious! (Though there really isn’t any other way to defecate than doing it yourself. 😀) (But McGregor prolly pays someone to do it for him in an ill-fitting designer suit. 🙄)
Visiezonuo Metha 1 year ago (edited)
There is a song by Jeremy Zucker: talk is overrated and there is a line that goes something like “talk is overrated, let’s just vibe”. And my ex thought it was “let’s just fight”. We had a good laugh when he narrated it to me 🤭
Misty Matejka 1 year ago
When I was little my dad used to say, he would thump me upside my gourd if I didn't stop, whatever it was that I was doing. So one day in school, my teacher asked if anyone knew what a gourd was, and my hand goes flying up oh oh I know, I know. To which I say it's your head. Teacher couldn't stop laughing. But I didn't know why? Fast forward to parent teacher conference and she retells the story. My parents got a laugh and then told me why everyone kept laughing at me. The story is still a joke in my family.
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