Things you never had right. (McLean: how much, house, wedding)

[slduvall]

I always thought it was "intentsive purposes" instead of Intents and Purposes. As in - for all intents and purposes" And my mom was an English Teacher! Was way into my 20's when I got it right.

[slowlane3]

I was 40 years old before someone told me that you can lock gasoline pumps in place, by slipping the tab in the little bump. I thought you had to keep squeezing the trigger the whole time you filled up.

Although I was 20 years old during the hippie era, I was very sheltered and nerdy. I didn't realize the hit song "Grazing in the Grass" meant smoking pot. I didn't realize the folk song "Abraham, Martin, and John" referred to the 3 assassinated leaders - I just thought it was a sweet little meaningless song. Once during college speech class, someone suggested I make a speech about grass, so I naively prepared a speech about different kinds of lawn grass - and everyone snickered. And I had never heard of homosexuality. Although boys in the locker room would insult each other using insulting names for sexual identity and associated acts, I never knew what they were talking about. I was 19 when I first read a magazine article about gay people.

[choff5]

When I was first married and moved here from the Midwest we lived in an apartment off of Columbia Pike in Arlington. I could not figure out what inner and outer loop meant at all. I kept looking at a map trying to find two separate roads. I honestly learned the streets of D.C. and Arlington thanks to a little jigsaw puzzle of the metro area I had gotten someplace, and kept taking apart and putting together again and again.

[beatlecrazy]

Kind of embarrassing, but I always pronounced "compromise" like "come-promise" not "compromize". I used it in a sentence last year and my brother (who is an English teacher ugh) almost died laughing...I still slip up and say "but yeah, we both need to completely come-promise. I MEAN COMP-PRO-MIZE!"

And I always said "subtle" like "Sub-tle" just like another commenter said. LOL!

[Carlingtonian]

I was in my 20s before I realized "Connecticut" has that extra "c" in the middle. (And I won an elementary-school spelling bee! Fortunately, it was not in Connecticut.)

I'm going to implicate Mrs. Carlingtonian on another one: You know those Allstate commercials with Dennis Haysbert, aka President Palmer from the early seasons of "24," aka the lead guy from The Unit? My wife thought he was saying "That's Allstate, Stan!" As if "Stan" were some slang term for "Bub" or "Dude."

[reebo]

When I was a kid I thought God's name was Art, like in "Our Father, who *is* Art in Heaven"

Along this line, my husband thought there was a thirteenth apostle named Verily, as in, "Verily, I say unto you..."

[HokieFan]

I always thought the slogan for Sara Lee was "Nobody does it like Sara Lee" when it's actually "Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee".

I didn't realize it until I saw the slogan on the side of a delivery truck.

[michgc]

Until about 10 years ago I thought the term was "inter-city" not "inner-city." (In my defense, Philadelphians don't pronounce their t's so it was a natural assumption on my part that people were saying "inter". Although, not in my defense, "inter-city" makes no sense.)

[michgc]

Originally Posted by HokieFan

I always thought the slogan for Sara Lee was "Nobody does it like Sara Lee" when it's actually "Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee".

Me, too. Me, too! I always thought the same thing until my mom corrected me.

[Carlingtonian]

Originally Posted by reebo

Along this line, my husband thought there was a thirteenth apostle named Verily, as in, "Verily, I say unto you..."

Yes, I believe Verily begat Lo, who begat Yea.