Story about this misheard lyric by: WhyDoYouNeedMyName

I came to Canada when I was about 5 and started learning English when I was about five, and I never saw the lyrics written down until I was about 13. The only time I ever heard people saying the word "patriot" was when they talked about people in the USA, and based off of the usage of it, I assumed it was an insult and thought that that word wouldn't be in the anthem, so I assumed it was "paint-red" because "patriot" in the anthem sounds more like "pait-rid" than "pay-tree-ot", and it still sounds like "paint red" to me even after knowing it's "patriot", and the flag is red and white, so I assumed it was related to that somehow. Also, since English isn't my native language and I mostly focused on learning how to talk to modern English speakers instead of people from like the middle ages, I assumed "thy" was a weird pronunciation of the word "the", and always thought "thee" was also "the" because "the" sometimes sounds like "thee", and as a result was always confused when the anthem ended because I never knew what we were standing on guard for.