I recently discovered (and this as a 1L) that the word "chastity" doesn't usually mean "sexual morality" but rather "abstinence" or "celibacy." The ordinary usages of the words are virtually synonymous.

My younger brother (he was about ten at the time) learned a word from a medicine ad on TV. He didn't understand the laughter when he announced at the dinner table, "I think I have a hemorrhoid on my elbow".

A good story from med school on this subject.

Not sure this is quite what you're looking for, but it might amuse some people. When taking the SAT, a question had to do with the meaning of the word "throng." Since my school had us read Chaucer in middle English, I remembered the phrase, "gan pullen up the smok and in he throng." Alas, that was not the meaning they had in mind.

Until reading Guy Kawasaki's Rules for Revolutionaries, excerpt:

For the longest time, I thought that hoi polloi referred to the elite, upper crust of people (after all, it is a foreign and therefore hoity-toity sounding word).

I had thought the same and for the same reasons.

Well, this is tangential, but I think it's funny and has something to do with misinterpretation. A couple we knew had their second baby on the way, and their little toddler knew a thing or two about the birds and bees. One Sunday in church, a rather fat man sat beside them in the pew, and the little boy patted him on the stomach and said "Got a baby in there, don't you?"

Language Log had an interesting explanation of how the word "twat" made it into Robert Browning's poem Pippa Passes.

My parents love to tell a story from when my two brothers were growing up. On a road trip, the younger one, a little boy at that point, saw some cows on a farm they were passing by. He asked what they were and the older one said "they're called Charlies." So for some time afterward, whenever my little brother saw cows, he would jump around and excitedly say "Look at the Charlies! Look at the Charlies!" to everyone.

This happened just today in class, actually: the young lady leading the discussion on the assigned reading (an essay about nature vs. nurture with regard to gender differences) took the phrase "Is the Pope Catholic?" to mean the same thing as, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" (I guess she thought it meant, "Which came first, the Pope or Catholicism?") and based much of her discussion around it. I felt bad correcting her in front of the whole class but no one had any idea what she was talking about.

"I used to believe that the term napkin was intended to mean only those dinner table linens made of paper, while serviette was the proper term for those made of cloth."

The first time I ate in a British restaurant, I was corrected about the napkin-serviette distinction as follows: Serviette was the generic term for any sort of towel, either paper or cloth; napkins were what women used once a month.

My parents were amazingly tolerant WRT censoring my reading material (figuring that anything I wasn't ready for would bore me - and they were right more often than not). So I was able to read Dan Jenkins's hilarious gridiron novel _Semi-Tough_ well before I was able to understand all the nuances.

Well, there was one passage in which he used a number of terms, all vaguely disparaging, to (in the narrator's voice) describe a character. One of them was "pimp". Since I recognized a number of the other terms as being "merely" insulting, I figured this one was as well.

So I used it when I was irritated at a slightly older boy (I think I was 12 and he was 14). He clued me in to the connection with the prostitution industry, to my embarassment.

Well, to continue the running "napkin" theme here, as a (pre-pubertal) child I once put a coin in a bathroom "sanitary napkin" dispenser, expecting one of those cleanser-infused handwipe thingies, and was most confused by what actually emerged. I think I gave my mom the laugh of her life when I recounted this.

Not really what Eugene needs, though . . .

When I was but a wee lad, I often heard older boys in the neighborhood call each other "dildos." Since it was a goofy sounding word and was used so freely, I assumed it meant something like "doofus," "idiot," etc. I discovered I was mistaken when I reported to my mother that my younger brother wouldn't stop being a dildo.

Not a funny example, but the use of "beg a question" for "raise a question."

I used to think that a "drinking problem" was when you couldn't get your lips around a glass like a normal person, and instead tossed your drink onto the front of your shirt a la Ted Striker on Airplane!

"Striker?! I hardly know her!"

This probably isn't exactly what you're looking for, but the eggcorn database (http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/) might be a place to check out. It fits the theme of learning a phrase incorrectly.

In my first year of law school, I remember a professor asking a student if he knew what loss of consortium was and the student said "I think it's some sort of business tort." That was hilarious.

BTW, if the person who said that is reading this thread, don't be too embarrassed. I don't actually remember who said this. I just remember the comment itself.

Here's one I ran into, and you probably all have too - the idea that a "gunsel" is a gunman. Sam Spade calls Wilmer, Casper Gutman's torpedo, a "gunsel" in "Maltese Falcon". In fact, he does it twice. Everyone assumes the obvious, and incorrect, meaning. I see it in print fairly frequently. Lileks has used it twice that I've noticed in his various columns.

Philip Marlowe liked to work contemporary prison slang into his "hard-boiled dick" stories, partly for an air of authenticity, and partly to put one over on zealous editors. A gunsel is, according to my favorite (albeit bombastic and circumlocutionary) definition, Depression-era American prison slang for "a young man kept by an older man for purposes of pederasty." The context in "Maltese Falcon" certainly makes that plausible, if you recall the Joel Cairo character.

Since I mentioned "torpedo," people generally interpret that incorrectly, too. It is Latin for "numbness." In crime fiction-speak, it means "stupid" - same root as "torpor," "torpid." Not inappropriate when applied to a thug.

I thought I knew what the word "libertarian" meant till I saw it being applied in odd ways around here.

In my experience, people often get the following words wrong when drawing from the context:

"Penultimate" doesn't mean really really ultimate; it means, basically, second-most.

If you're "ambivalent" about something, it doesn't mean you don't care about it; more properly, it means you're conflicted, or torn.

- AJ

My wife tells me that, as a child, she learned that drinking "non-fat or skim milk" as opposed to regular milk was a way to lose weight. From this context, and from that point forward, she says she referred to this drink as "skin milk" because it made people skinny.

I thought "approximate" meant "extremely precise" for too many years. The cause was the scifi movie staple where a scientist (or smart ass) is asked for an estimate and answers "approximately twenty four point oh oh five nine minutes."

Homer Simpson deserves a mention: "Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals...except the weasel." h/t, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

I once had to bring up a problem to a superior at work, to which she responded "well, i guess we're gonna have to speak with x and nip this issue in the butt." "excuse me, did you just say, 'butt'???" There was much confusion and disbelief. Apparently she never saw it in print nor did anyone ever enlighten her.

When my granddaughter was very young she would stuff her mouth full of food without swallowing. We would have to prod her by saying "Down the hatch" until she swallowed. Later, she had a cold and a sore throat and would complain, "My hatch hurts."

I learned recently that "with all due respect" is not as respectful as I thought it was.

This from Dictionary.com:
Historically, flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. However, the presence of the prefix in- has misled many people into assuming that inflammable means “not flammable” or “noncombustible.” The prefix -in in inflammable is not, however, the Latin negative prefix -in, which is related to the English -un and appears in such words as indecent and inglorious. Rather, this -in is an intensive prefix derived from the Latin preposition in. This prefix also appears in the word enflame. But many people are not aware of this derivation, and for clarity's sake it is advisable to use only flammable to give warnings.

Many years ago, a young cousin reported that he had learned in Sunday School that Pontius the Pilot took Jesus up to Heaven in an airplane. I believe Sunday School misunderstandings are an entire genre of humor, though I don't have any other examples.

My little brother and his friends, many years back, were watching the video for George Michael's "I Want Your Sex". They were all about thirteen at the time. The video's moment of mixed messages comes when Michael writes "monogomy" in lipstick on a woman's leg. One of the friends asked, "What's monogomy?" My brother answered, "I think it has something to do with a woman's anatomy."

I mentioned to a friend a while back that I was feeling "a bit peckish'. (My years in Britain were showing.) He looked puzzed, and asked why. "I haven't eaten for a while," I replied. "What does that have to do with it?" he asked.... This ended with his explaining that based upon his experience watching British television programming, he thought "peckish" meant "arrogant". (Apparently, British television stars seem a bit haughty as they announce their intention to have a snack.)

College history professor teaching a course on Medieval Law and Government was talking about trials in those days. A student inquired about perjury, and the professor replied that it was unlikely to happen, because people in those days believed that God was IMMINENT. And she wrote it on the board, just so. Another student asked her what that meant, and she replied, "Just about to happen."

When she was asked, don't you mean "immanent" she replied, no, she did not mean EMINENT, and wrote that word on the board as well, just so.

My ex-fiancee always would talk to me about "the moralistic thing to do" when she meant "the moral thing to do." Although, no longer engaged to her, I reflect she may have inadvertantly been right in what she intended to convey...

When I was a boy, I thought "a couple" meant "a few," not "two." I remember getting in an argument with my grandmother when I said I'd be home in "a couple of hours," and showed up four hours later. I honestly thought I'd kept my word, but she felt misled.

Askance: Until recently, a friend thought looking askance meant looking questioningly based on some long ago context.

Enormity: Has a very natural (mis)interpretation that is at odds with its more usual connotation. For example, there is a Forest Service interpretive site in Metaline Falls WA praising the industry of early settlers for the enormity of some construction projecct they had completed.

"begs the question" is misused to the point that the meaning has changed. I'm an editor and have constantly to correct the usage by my highly literate colleagues. Term comes from "beggars the question," meaning the question answers itself. It's almost universal use now is that something "begs the question" as in "raises the question."

Another of the foreign language signs misunderstandings....

Midway through a backpacking-across-Europe trip, my friend and I found ourselves unexpectedly in Verona, Italy, on very little sleep. Since we hadn't intended to go there, we had no guidebooks or maps or anything, so we just wandered around. As we were wandering, we kept noticing signs with arrows and the words "Senso Unico." "I wonder what this 'Senso Unico' thing is," one of us said, assuming that it must be some sort of tourist attraction. "Want to follow the signs and find out?," said the other. After walking around in circles for a bit, we realized that "Senso Unico" means "One-Way Street."

The words anti-social and asocial are often confused and misused in a manner similar to what you seem to be looking for.

I have always mistaken the word "temerity" for being nearly the same as "timid" or "timorous." So now I have to go slow and careful when I encounter that term - making sure I got it right.

Richard Samuelson: Very amusing!

Jules: My (= Eugene's) family spent some months in Italy in 1975 on our way between the Soviet Union and the U.S. My mother used to see these "senso unico" (one way) signs and think that if you followed the signs you would experience a unique feeling.

Brett A. Thomas: I figured out, based on various contexts, that "a few" meant 3, "a couple" meant 5 (!), "some" also meant 5, and "several" clearly meant 7.

Eugene: My experience was with the word "rue," which I got wrong on the PSAT. At the time, I didn't know A.E. Housman's "With Rue My Heart Is Laden," which would have given it away for me. But I did know two things: (1) The lines from "You Did It" ("My Fair Lady"): "I thought that you would rue it, I doubted you'd do it, but now I must admit it that succeed you did." (2) The lines from "The Lusty Month of May" ("Camelot"): "It's time to do a wretched thing or two, and try to make each precious day one you'll always rue." Based on this context, "rue" obviously meant "ruin."

Also, there was an episode of "The Brady Bunch" where one of the sons asks whether he can do something and the mother says "Of course not." But she said it so lovingly that I thought it meant "Yes." I knew at the time (I was maybe 5) it was counterintuitive, but I thought it was just one of those expressions that didn't make literal sense. Perhaps I even used it once in that sense.

When I was in 7th or 8th grade, I read Hemingway's "Islands in the Stream," which is full of profanity. I went to school one day and told my friends, "Hey, we're using the word 'cunt' all wrong."

During the holidays a few years back, my family was having dinner together when my sister referred to me as her "erstwhile brother." Nobody bothered to correct her the first time, as she was in the midst of complimenting me. However, when she once again called me her "erstwhile brother," I had to ask if she knew what the word meant. She replied "earnest and dependable."

Turns out she had encountered "erstwhile" many times in romance novels. Typically, these novels would describe "erstwhile lovers" or "erstwhile suiters." Apparently the former flames are always good guys, so she took erstwhile to mean "earnest and dependable."

Larry Zangla wrote:

Along the lines of penultimate, I've always had trouble with the term "antebellum", which means "pre-war", because in order to have "antebellum", there must first be a "bellum". "Antebellum" doesn't even exist until after there was a "bellum", hence, in my screwed-up mind, "antebellum" wants to mean "post-war".

Complicating this further is the fact that, at least in America, the word "antebellum" is overwhelmingly used in reference to one specific war - the American Civil War. Use "antebellum" in reference to, say, Europe in the years leading up to WWI and you're likely to get a lot of people confused.

Also, until just last year I'd always thought the numeric slang "69" referred to sex in general, rather than a specific type of sex.

Regarding the experience referenced by Johnny Appleseed, supra, in the 7th Grade I read Harlan Ellison's Nebula Award winning short story "A Boy and his Dog." The story is set in a post-apocalytpic world of intelligent dogs, cannibalism, few women and much rape. On reflection, it was not the most appropriate book for a 12 year old.

Nonetheless, I and a friend of mine had read the book and couldn't figure out some of the terms used by Ellison, specifically "cunt."

Based on the context, I told my friend that it must be the past tense contraction for "cannot".

Fortunately, this understanding never made its way into any of my school papers.

This was in the early '70s. I wonder how many seventh graders today would be that ignorant.

Then, of course, there's the famous story of the tourist to Boston who asked someone where he could get "scrod."

From watching movies, I have determined that Yankees don't understand the word "yall". It is contraction for "you all" and is never used in the singular tense.

Every newscaster seems to believe that decimated means devastated.

My niece and nephew were afraid of sleeping together in the same bed for fear of contracting AIDS. This was resolved by informing them that it could only happen if they slept in the same bed naked.

A friend of mine asked his 10-year old girl whether she wanted to feed the new baby. She said "but I can't daddy, I don't have any boobs".

Two weeks ago in church, the pastor praised the actions of a man who "beat off" two Rottweilers who were attacking a small boy. After a bit of soul searching, I determined not to inform him of the other meaning of that phrase.

Why is it that we say, about a small child, that we are going to "put him down" for the night? I thought that was something you did to a horse with a broken leg.

The "Xing" thing also brings to mind the use of "Xmas" as written shorthand for "Christmas". Until a few years ago I was hesitant to use "Xmas" because it struck me as sacrilegious (and apparently many people still believe this), but then I learned that it's commonplace even for clergy to use similar shorthand (i.e. "Xian" for "Christian").

Disinterested does not mean uninterested.

Presently does not mean at present.

Beg the question does not mean invite the question.

Orally does not mean verbally, *even though lawyers incorrectly use it that way*!!!!!

Enormity does not mean large.

a lot of people confuse i.e. and e.g.

For an 18th Century American History class, we had a choice of several essay topics, one of which was along the lines of "Explain why Ben Franklin was a child of New England." Having grown up in Southern California and having never been east of the Mississippi, I had always understood "New England" to mean "Northeast" or "the thirteen colonies." Thus, my paper included numerous examples from Franklin's time in Pennsylvania and New York. Luckily, the professor was quite forgiving once I explained my misunderstanding.

I edited a report in which the author described the collection of duplicate samples as "duplicitous samples".

When I was a young lad, about 10, I visited an art show in New York with one of my aunts. I, being bored, wandered off. As I was making my way through the show, I overheard a conversation between two other show goers. I don't remember much about the painting, except it was very bright and colorful. In the conversation I overheard, the comment was made to the effect that the artist used "erotic colors" or something like that. I took "erotic" to mean "very bright and colorful." I used the word among my friends for several years without incident, as usually, no adult was present to correct me. ("Jeeze! Look at those road crew safety vests. Could they be any more erotic?") That was until freshman year of high school when Sister Leandrea returned from Mexico with a brightly colored serape and asked my opinion of it in class. It was then I learned the correct meaning.

Houston Lawyer: Add that far too many people, even in Texas, write it as "ya'll", which is another contraction entirely. I've given up trying to correct it to "y'all".

Paul Johson's comment about secular priests may make sense. I learned recently that secular originally referred to those members of the clergy living in the world. Its partner was regular, which refers to those living under a rule, such as the monastic orders. (As I am not Roman Catholic, nor a serious student of Roman Catholisicm, please don't take these definitions as authoratative.)

Celtic with a soft 'c' sound is a correct pronunciation in British English. The Glasgow Celts is 'Selts.' I read that it just the difference between British English and latin, which has no soft 'c'.

Meredith Wilson ruined the word "reticent" for hundreds, if not thousands, of schoolchildren who now think it means to be cautiously hesitant if not suspiciously hostile.

I've heard more than one person used "laconic" to mean "important" -- I have no idea where that one came from.

"Alleviate" does not mean to *cure*, but that's an understandable one.

"Peruse" is almost universally misunderstood.

Thanks to Alanis Morrisette, the entire frickin' world now equates "ironic" with "a bummer."

-Michael

Words are fun!
Rush Limbaugh got into trouble because he railed about women farding in their cars, for the better part of two hours. Fard, apply makeup

Old joke; 4th grade teacher had an old fighter pilot come to talk to her class. He told many stories. One story he was relating a dog fight he was in, "This folker come from no where, I dove to avoid the folker but the folker found me again, I made a lot of evasive moves but the folker was always right there." at this point the teacher had to speak up and asked the speaker if he maybe would explain that a Folker was a type of air craft? HE said, "no this folker was a Mescherschmitt. (you have to read this out loud to make funny)

One of the most recent and amussing was the flap that arose about a govt official being excoriated at a meeting, because he accused some official of being niggardly. He was roundly put down for being a racist.

Ignorant v stupid. Ignorant=no knowledge of. stupid=unable to gain knowledge.

PIUS XXX

It is nip it in the bud, not butt, as in stop it before it is able to flower, re. reproduce

Celibate= not married, as in a catholic priest is celibate, we dont know if he is chaste.

For bonus points....What is immaculate conception?

The conception of Mary, Mother of God.

I worked in graduate admissions for a b-school for a while, on the filing/paperwork/scheduling end. One university in India — on the official transcripts, no less — described students who had completed their course of study as "passed-out students."

this isn't really what you are looking for...but it's a huge pet peeve of mine...hearing someone use the words "conversate" and/or "conversating".

About 1970 or so, Richard Nixon gave a speech in which he complained about how the continual Vietnam War protests were accomplishing nothing, producing more heat than light. He proposed a ninety day moratorium on protests and debate to give everyone a chance to calm down, cool off, and come back to the debate a little more refreshed.

The war protesters, of course, would have nothing of the sort. They decided that the ninety day moratorium (temporary cessation or suspension) would instead be ninety days of intensified protest and argument, with teach-ins on college campuses, and for a while, the only meaning of "moratorium" that seemed to exist was "teach-in." As a result, right into the late 1980s, I would see TV journalists who grew up in that era occasionally use the word "moratorium" in rather the sense of "seminar" or "colloquiam." It just made my brain hurt to heart this. (Admittedly, these are journalists--not exactly the brightest crayons in the box.)

Oh yeah, my wife, when about nine, heard the word "prostitute" and thought it was a different pronounciation of "Protestant."

She had also never heard the expression "tube steak" to refer to something other a hot dog or sausage--leading to a rather amused reaction at a church picnic. Of course, everyone knew how innocent and sweet she was, so they figured out the cause of this faux pas.

Anonymous coward, I can't help adding a 'fanny' story I once heard: Supposedly the Queen of England was at a charity benefit concert, and an American band began playing a song that included the lyrics "shake your fanny." The Queen got up and left in horror and disgust. I believe they had to send someone to explain the American meaning of 'fanny,' before she would return to the concert.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who's been misled by the printed word misled. And I only discovered my mistake a year ago when my husband read something out loud! I still read it in my head as "MY-zled".

My own pet peeve: use of the word "irregardless".

It took years of reading Rehnquist opinions before I actually looked up "vel non." I assumed from context that it just meant "and here it is," or something like that. It's hard to glean the meaning from the context, because usually it's meaningless lip service to the opposing point of view.

My favorite context story dates back to when my father was teaching one of my cousins -- who was perhaps five or six years old at the time -- the names of different parts of his then new 1960 Ford while driving around. Apparently there was some trouble shifting gears during the ride, because later the lad proudly exhibited his new knowledge to his Mother, saying "That's the brake... that's the clutch... and [pointing to the gear shift lever] that's the sonofabitch."

Context sometimes seems to spread improper usages. I hear the word "fulsome", misused to mean "full" or "thorough" much more often than the correct meaning of "offensively flattering or insincere".

Aultimer

Although you are surely right on the definition of a Yankee, I agree that most folks around here would classify anyone residint North of Dallas in that category. And I certainly will yield to someone from the State of Mississippi on how to speak Southern, although there are many proper variations on that language. I had to travel to Lexington before I heard "your all's" used instead of "yall's".

[Insert obligatory "slightly" OT message here]

I was born and raised as a young child in Berkeley during the early/mid 60's. Hitchhiking was of course very common at that time in that area.

When the family was travelling in the car, I would notice (when I wasn't too busy asking "are we there yet?") truck weighing stations on the side of the freeway - often in fairly isolated areas. The signs declaring a weigh station often (maybe always) had a smaller sign under them stating NO PICKUPS. This perplexed me for many years — after all, how would a hitchhiker get to these isolated stations? Although, I partially resolved that in my mind because there was no sign stating NO DROPOFFS so perhaps there was quite a supply of hitchhikers who had been dropped off — which made me somewhat uneasy as I wondered what happened when they ran out of food and water on since they could never be picked up.

It was only when I was in my 20's and was driving a particularly boring stretch of freeway which had a weigh station when I had a moment of enlightenment and realized that if I was driving a Ford 150 pickup truck, I wouldn't be required to stop at the weigh station. (Embarrassingly, it took me a few more years before I sorted out the "misled" thing - I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one misled by this.)

Ah, the twisty mind of a child...

In my first-year contracts class, we read a case in which a state supreme court was reviewing the decision of the state's intermediate court. The court said, in essence, "We apply the same clearly erroneous standard of review that the appellate division did, and therefore affirm." And I went nuts: if the appellate division applied an erroneous legal standard -- much less one that was obviously erroneous -- why on earth would the state supreme court repeat the mistake? It took the professor a few minutes even to understand why I objected to using a "clearly erroneous standard of review" (whihc to my ears sounded like, "We're knowingly using the wrong rule.")

John Wismar:

Your memory may be playing you false regarding "gnarly". My understanding is that it was invented by the scriptwriters of HEATHERS (1989). They figured that it would be a year or two from scripting to release, so any real teenspeak they used would be obsolete by that time.

OTOH, the word appeared in 1939, in the title of the short story "The Gnarly Man" by L Sprague de Camp.

When I was in high school, I thought "disenfranchised" meant "unhappy with politics." Close, but no cigar (losing voting rights would make you unhappy with politics) Thankfully, my AP Euro History teacher straightened me out.

Funny that "misled" keeps coming up here -- the "my-zeld" pronunciation is a longtime running joke in our family, although I don't know if there was a specific incident that it stems from.

A recurring error that I keep seeing online is the use of "for all intensive purposes" by people who mean "for all intents and purposes", but have apparently never seen it in print.

Events at my company are publicized by a functional illiterate, so we get quite a parade of errors. I'm still chuckling over the holiday party with food that is "pleasing to the palette".

My own experience was with "impotent". Learned its (non-sexual) meaning in context sometime in grade school, and then cracked up a class in junior high with my pronunciation: "im-PO-tent".

"Matriculate" is often used in lieu of "graduate". This qualifies for EV's status as the first place I ever saw the word "matriculate" was on a high school graduation card given by my parents - something witty to the effect "You matriculated! Now clean it up". I didn't figure out the actual meaning until my own graduation years later.

Re "misled": I had the same sort of experience as a kid with "reuse." It was in an article in Ranger Rick, a sort of environmentalist kiddie zine, and the article, which was about recycling, kept saying "Reuse that paper bag!" And there I was thinking "Roose? Roose? What does it mean?" An argument in favor of hyphenation, I think.

The owner of a store I worked at in high school told me that he once saw a headline in the newspaper - "Fastidious Women Choose Hair Removal" - and concluded that fastidious meant hairy.

Here's a quote from John Kerry during the last presidential election campaign that nicely exemplifies another common word-usage faux-pas:

"Yes, we need increased accountability in schools. We need to raise the standards. But you don't have to do it in a way that disrespects teachers and literally throws the baby out with the bath water, which is what they're doing today."

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110004606

Only recently (on this site in fact) I learned that "condone" means "to overlook, forgive, or disregard (an offense) without protest or censure." I had always thought it meant "endorse." The reason I thought that was it's often used along the lines of "I don't condone [violence or something else bad], but [I have some sympathy toward it in this case]." In that context, I always thought "endorse" was what was meant, rather than merely "overlook" or "forgive."

Joshua-

In the same vein is the old cliche "It ain't paranoia if they really are out to get you." Um, yes it is. Paranoia is defined simply as the notion that others mean to persecute you or otherwise do you harm. Whether or not that's actually true is irrelevant to the meaning of the word.

Not sure I agree - paranoia requires delusion or irrationality.

Main Entry: para·noia
Pronunciation: "par-&-'noi-&
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin, from Greek, madness, from paranous demented, from para- + nous mind
1 : a psychosis characterized by systematized delusions of persecution or grandeur usually without hallucinations
2 : a tendency on the part of an individual or group toward excessive or irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others

It's only a quaint old regionalism, but I learned at a young age that here in South Carolina "directly" often has the exact opposite meaning.
"Grandaddy, when are we going home?"
"We're going home directly" = after a while, and certainly not directly.
I've seen it in print at "too-reckly," but I've never heard that pronunciation.

Joshua re: John Wismar
In the same vein is the old cliche "It ain't paranoia if they really are out to get you." Um, yes it is.
We say, "Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?"

David McClory,

I remember having a very prim, religiously conservative lab partner in 9th grade biology. Our assignment was to put a hydra under a microscope and draw it, labeling the parts and describing their functions. When we compared our drawings just before handing them in, I had to point out to her that she had labeled the tentacles "testicles" throughout. She blushed faster than I'd have thought possible for one so pale, and got really busy with the eraser.

(The odd thing is that hydras, according to our textbook anyway, really do have things called "testicles," when they get around to reproducing. But that structure wasn't where the arrow in her diagram was pointing.)

Thanks for teaching me "condone", AF.

I had an econ prof who had been involved in the IBM anti-trust case, and he didn't think much of the judge. He told the story that one of the lawyers in the case made a reference to "the penultimate paragraph on" some page of a document. Opposing counsel immediately objected to the characterization of said paragraph as "penultimate", and the judge sustained the objection until the word was defined.

I'm under the impression that, Alanis Morisette notwithstanding, "ironic" is more often used to mean "coincidental" than "disappointing". But maybe I just have that impression because that's how my landlord uses it.

My (very left-wing) sister was surprised to learn a few years ago that "corporation" had an actual meaning, and wasn't just an epithet usable for large, for-profit companies.

Growing up, when I would ask for something, my mother would often answer with 'I doubt it'. So my first definition of 'I doubt it' was 'probably'.

Ah, the twisty mind of a child...

When my parents said they were taking me to Belle Vue, a pleasure park that had a zoo in northern England, I heard it as "Belve-You." So, naturally, having a logical mind, I referred to it when I was speaking as "Belve-Me."

Gnarly was in use in England when I was a child, as in a gnarly tree, which I think meant it had a lot of bumps and knots and twists and turns. And it was definitely used by surfers in the Sities to refer to unruly waves.

My dad also used hoi polloi to refer to the upper class, the wealthy, the powerful, instead of the masses despite my hints that it didn't mean what he thought it did. We were part of the working class and I guess he thought it sounded too fancy to apply to us commoners.

As a child, I thought that accidentally on purpose meant that you didn't mean to do it, it just happened by accident. Got in real trouble with my father for hitting my brother before that 'who's on first' interlude was over.

My favorite - Baited breath....giving a whole new meaning to holding your breath in anticipation.

Another variation on paranoia: Just becasue you think you're paranoid, doesn't mean someone isn't following you...

As a pre-pubescent in the early '70s, I sometimes saw and/or read instances of hippies shouting "fascist!" to businessmen or politicians. I reasoned that a fascist was any person who held some power and position. I wasn't sure why the hippies were so angry, though.

I think hyperbole is sometimes to blame for such misunderstandings. For example, it isn't uncommon to call sitting through a long lecture or a bad movie "torture". And now it seems that torture has come to signify any kind of prolonged discomfort.

Less political, I remember thinking a "blockbuster" movie was one that was overly hyped - having nothing to do with its actual popularity.

Anyway, it sounds like most of these examples are malapropisms. Still, this thread is very enjoyable and I'll pile on with my own off-topic examples.

For some reason, the mothers' car-pool for my kindergarten was called a "hook up," which I misheard as "hiccup." Being only 6, I accepted this unquestioningly and for several years continued to refer to ride sharing as a hiccup.

I was kind of a smart-alec (still am, I guess), and I would pester my older brother about his figures of speech - playing dumb as to their meaning and being literal. He'd of course get mad and say to me, "You always have to take things so liberally!" (Isn't it ironic, dontcha think?)

My brother was quite a malaprop. We had a chihuahua-mix dog growing up that was able to slip out of every collar we tried. So we used a harness instead - which dear brother called a "furnace." We later got a sheepdog who was quite sloppy when it came to his water dish. According to my brother, the dog would stick his whole "nozzle" into the water - meaning muzzle, of course.

Two words I learned from reading that took a while before I understood them pronouced. "Chaos" was in my mind "cha-os" (rhymes with Laos), and "recipe" was "re-sipe". But who could blame me?

Keep them coming! And someone forward this link to Richard Lederer.

In the late '70s when I was a teenager, Steve Martin had a comedy album out. One song included the line: "have an S&M party in a telephone booth". My friends older and not-so-hip folks heard that line. The mom asked the dad, "What's this S&M?" The dad replied, "Sounds like it must be sex and marijuana."

This really isn't the sort of thing Eugene is looking for, but neither are many of the other anecdotes here.

Back in junior high school I was discussing Piers Anthony's Ogre, Ogre with a friend who had just finished it, and I mentioned the "eye cue-ee" vines that made Smash, the half-ogre, intelligent. My friend laughed, then informed me of the proper pronunciation of "queue." "Well," I thought, "that explains some things."

In the days of detente, an official at the Soviet Embassy in D.C. proposed a toast for some American guests. What he meant to say was "bottoms up", but his English was not quite idiomatic and he said "up your bottoms".

Can't believe no one has mentioned the constant misuse of "literally" to mean "figuratively." As in, "when she was nine months pregnant, she was literally as big as a house."

Perhaps that's because Slate rencently explored misuse of "literally" here.

Oh, and another one. When I was in elementary school I read about a kind of light that people can't see: infrared light, which I read as in-frared light. I figured that if infrared light can't be seen, then to infrare must mean something like "to make invisible".

Moot!

From context, I was taught that "moot" meant "irrelevant" point, not one that was open to argument! I'm not willing to contribute the funny tale of when I misused this around a group of lawyers...it's too embarrassing.

I don't know if this actually fits your usage issue, but for the longest time, I misunderstood signs that said "Frontage Road". I thought that sign was telling me the name of the road was "Frontage." I was very confused as to why Frontage was such a common road name that occurred in so many different towns--like Main or State or Elm--given that I didn't know the word "Frontage." I decided that Frontage must have been the name of a famous person, like Washington or Jefferson. I was about 10 when I asked who Mr. Frontage was, to the amusement of my parents.

When my son was 1 1/2, I said to him: "Ok, buddy, let's get you dressed" and promptly walked over to his sister's closet, and started ruffling through the dresses.

I think there's a pronoun missing from this sentence.

Not sure if this meets your requirements, but it is funny:

Remember the Bud Ice commercials with the stalking penguin? It would call its victims and sing "Dooby Dooby Do".

The two-year old niece of an ex-girlfriend thereafter knew penguins as "Doobies".

Then there's the one about the young Sunday-school student who thought the hymn "Gladly the Cross I'd Bear" was about a bruin with an odd name and an unfortunate ocular problem...

These are from my kids when they were much younger:

1) Mom, why is it called a wind breaker? Because it breaks wind?

2) Son: Mom can I go outside and ride my bike?
Mother: No Seth. You cannot because you need supervision and I am busy right now.
Son: Moooom, there is no such thing as super vision.

Although born in Western New York, I was raised in the South (Texas, Louisiana &Virginia). My father being a military man, we moved around quite a bit.

When I was on the cusp of man hood, our family attended a wedding in Fitzburg, MA. The event took place at a family home in a middle/working class neighborhood. We all had to park our cars on the street many blocks away from the house where the reception was taking place.

I spent as much time as I could with some of the older cousins and uncles at the reception (circa 1972). I was doing my best to fit in among the adults, as I was long past running and jumping games, and yearned to be accepted by my new found peers with the incomprehensible Yankee accents.

It was a Summer wedding, and it turned hotter as the day went on. My mentors started shedding their suit coats and asked if I would deposit them in a safe place. Eager to appear useful and thereby gain acceptance into the herd I was soon burdened with at least a half dozen suit jackets. Off I went to deposit the garments where I was instructed to by the alpha male of our group.

The men drank beers (I still had to drink soda), the food was served and the merriment went on into the evening.

Later, one of the owners of the suit coats came up to me and asked where I had put them. He was looking for his cigarettes and lighter. I told him I put them in the Impala, just as I was instructed. He shrugged and went in search of his belongings.

Ten minutes later, he was quizzing me again about the location of his jacket and tobacco. I reiterated that they were all in the red, two door '64 Impala with the white top. It was the only Impala parked in the neighborhood, and lucky for me people weren't obsessed with locking their car doors then. It didn't even seem strange to me that I had to hike three blocks to find the damn car, the streets were crowded with a lot of cars from the wedding guests.

My uncle/cousin (don't remember which now) started laughing so hard he was crying by the time he stopped.

That was how I learned that the Yankee concept "parlor" was the equivalent of what we in the south were taught was a "living room."

My Yankee cousin had said: "Put them in the parlor." My southern ears had heard: "Put them in the Impala." And when I confirmed to him that "I put them in the Impala", my cousin/uncle heard "I put them in the parlor." It wasn't until I later added the context of "red, two-door with white top" that it dawned on both of us that I was talking about a car and he was talking about a room.

The error was auditory, but context played a role too, as either place was just as logical to temporarily store the unneeded coats until the party was over. I had assumed, that was I putting the garments in the vehicle that my cousins/uncles were going to drive home in.

This story is now told at family reunions whenever the subject turns to the embarrassing things we all did as children. My faux indignant retort is always the same: "It would not have been as funny if the owner of that Impala had driven off with your suit jackets." You see, nobody in the family, nor any guest at the reception, drove a red Impala.