THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 29, 1996 TAG: 9601270038
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
A FEW COLUMNS back we printed some student bloopers collected by author Richard Lederer which appeared in The National Review.
At the end of the column readers were asked to please send me any bloopers students had committed.
The ink on that column was barely dry when Gwen Infantino, a world history teacher at First Colonial High School in Virginia Beach, faxed me an entry. This one was submitted by a 9th-grade student at her school this year, she said.
Asked to define monogamy, the student offered: ``A wood ancient Egyptians made beautiful furniture from.''
Here's a great letter from a prominent former professor at Old Dominion University and a congressman who prefers that his name not be used. He writes:
``As a member of the Old Dominion University history faculty of many years standing, I easily identified with the flubs contained in your column this week. . . ''
``Years ago, when I taught a section of medieval history, I asked a question on a test of the identify the sacrament of transubstantiation, that is, the miracle of the wafer and wine becoming the body and blood of Christ in the mass. The answer, of course, was `Holy Eucharist,' but the student in question wrote `Holy Uterus.'
``The second one is truly hilarious. One of my charges wrote a paper on the menace of Red China, beginning his theme with these words, `There is a growing peril in Asia. The great red testicles of Communist China are spreading across the Orient.' It took me five minutes before I could continue reading.
``The last one is also priceless. Submitting a book report on one of the Civil War battles in an American history course that I taught, this student endeavored to bring the battle to life in describing a rebel charge. So help me, his sentence was: `As the boys in gray charged, they yelled, `Yoweee as their balls flew off.' ''
Excuse me while I fit the pieces together. I just cracked up. Great stuff, Dr. Bill. I think you should do your own book.
Another great letter filled with bloopers came from Winnie Ridill, a teacher at First Colonial High. She writes that most of them were collected from her first 11 years of teaching, in Ohio and South Carolina. She included a few definitions. One of her students defined ``ink-ling'' as ``a baby ink.'' But most were from student papers.
Here we go:
My friend was valid victorian.
Hamlet wrote Macbeth.
The couple took the vowels of marriage.
I think Youth In Asia should be legalized.
He viewed each new illness or disease he encountered as a chance to enrich the anals of science.
Thou should not cubit thy neighbor's wife.
William W. Eley (presumably a teacher) writes the following was received on a history essay: One of the least proud moments in American history was when we bombed Pearl Harbor.
Kitty Lassiter of Boykins, Virginia says a child wrote a class paper about the discovery of America which began: Christopher Columbus discovered America by cursing around on his ships the Pinta, Nina, and Santa Fe.
She also includes, as a bonus, an item which she swears is from the Suffolk Sun: ``Toilet seats were stolen from The Virginia Beach Police Department. The cops had nothing to go on.''
Roland E. Campbell of W. Ocean View Avenue in Norfolk sends some student bloopers which our columnist George Tucker collected over the years. They include:
Magna Carta said that the king was not to order taxis without the consent of Parliament.
A metaphor is a thing you shout through at football games.
Music sung by two people at the same time is called a duel.
Gravity was invented by Sir Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.
On a Virginia wheat field in 1830, Cyrus McCormick demonstrated his automatic raper, which automatically threw 50,000 men out of work.
Thanks for writing, all. I'll pass your mail to Richard Lederer. by CNB