Thursday, January 31, 2013

Bloomers for Your Gray January Day

As usual, I haven't posted for aaaaages, and this isn't going to be very long itself, but here are a couple of my most favorite recent bloomers from the (very, very high) stack of student papers I've been burrowing through. (The rather odd topics reflect the fact that we've just done an applied argument paper regarding violence, etc., on TV, and the dear souls were trying valiantly to summarize episode plots.):

[In regards to a character associating with women of dubious character]: "He left the house with a prostate." (I don't even know what to say about this one. My dad pointed out that it might be instructive for the student to learn the different between a prostate and a loose woman HIMSELF before doing any "associating" of his own -- as, frankly, it would be much more expensive to go through prostate treatment unnecessarily than to simply, say, take the lady to dinner.)
 
“They are a close nit group of doctors.” (Apparently, even doctors have [very cozy] vermin infestation sometimes.)
 
“They have to walk for miles in the dessert to get to a gas station where they can call for help.” (  A) I would consider it a privilege to walk  miles in a dessert, and B) I hate it when I come across gas stations in the pudding.)
 
I'm so glad I don't teach in the math department (and so are they, believe me). Besides the fact that I would cause my colleagues serious pain and agony, I can't imagine incorrect maths answers would be this funny. Scott says I just haven't ever really understand maths enough to realize how excruciatingly funny some of the wrong answers actually are. This is a good possibility. 
 
love, kristin 
 

6 comments:

  1. Heh-heh! A walk in the dessert sounds delightful!

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    1. Ginger! I miss you and YWBS!! I hope things are wonderful down on SoCal land. I lost all your address update info when my email got hacked this summer, so could you please email it to me again at twohawksfarm AT gmail.com? I mustn't lose you!

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  2. Wow - the first one is book worthy!! I love your dad's comment - I believe Scott is right as well. Neither you nor I know enough about math to be dangerous. Did you ever watch the show "Numbers"? The math genius on that show would make comments about funny answers to math questions.

    Love the 'wallpaper' which looks very '50s. Not, of course, that the '50s were perfect in any way, but I do remember the decor with fondness.

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    1. I do have to watch Numbers -- it looked very funny. I love that (I almost fear apocryphal) famous "find x" question, with the x on the triangle side circled and "Here it is!" written proudly next to it. Now that's my kind of math!

      I thought the wallpaper suited the blog name! I love it when I manage to be very coordinated (only online, of course -- I don't think it's ever happened in real life ...).

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  3. Oh heavens. I hope my papers were proof-read well enough to not end up on my teacher's blog for entertainment. Though, truth be told, if they had, I'd likely have been just as entertained...after being irritated at myself for making the mistake. Also, I'm with you on the dessert thing.

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    1. Becky, I cannot imagine you making errors like this -- but I can imagine you laughing heartily over them if you had! THAT is because you have an imagination; the truly sad and terrible thing is that the couple of times I have caught something hilarious while reading over a paper with a student in person ... they hardly reacted at all. *Sigh.*

      p.s., it's so nice to hear from you!

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