Lee's Funnies

                                                          

"Looking at Language"

by Richard Lederer

Students win 'pullet surprises' for bloopers.

[I found this hanging on the wall of the Writing Program 
offices at MIT. The Xerox has no date and no publication, 
but I assume it's from the Boston Globe. The Writing Program 
folks added a note, "Let us help you not add to this!"]

One of the fringe benefits of being an English teacher is 
receiving the occasional jewel of a student blooper in a 
composition.

The original student blunder probably dates back to the day 
that some poor pupil first touched quill pen to parchment.

Ever since, student have shown a remarkable facility for 
confusing words that possess similar sounds but entirely 
different meanings or giving a droll twist to the simplest 
of facts.

The results range from the pathetic to the hilarious to the 
unintentionally insightful. For example, a student once 
wrote, "Having only one wife is called monotony," while 
another wrote, "When a man has more than one wife he is a 
pigamist."

From my own cullings and from the collections of other 
teachers, I offer my favorite student howlers, each a 
certifiably pure gem of fractured English:

In 1957, Eugene O'Neill won a Pullet Surprise.

The bowels are a, e, i, 0, u, and sometimes w and y.

Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.

The death of Francis Macomber was a turning point in his 
life.

A virgin forest is a place where the hand of man has never 
set foot.

Rural life is found mostly in the country.

In Act II, Hamlet is left on stage to relieve himself in his 
longest soliloquy.

A horse divided against itself cannot stand.

The President of the United States, in having foreign 
affairs, has to have the consent of the Senate.

The difference between a king and a president is that a king 
is the son of his father, but a president isn't.

It was the painter Donatello's interest in the female nude 
that made him the Father of the Renaissance.

Geometry teaches us to bisex angels.

If one angle of a triangle is more than 90 degrees the 
triangle is obscene.

Arabs wear turbines on their heads.

To collect sulfur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test 
tube.

In many states, murderers are put to death by electrolysis.

Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess 
on his knee.

The Gorgons had long snakes in their hair. They looked like 
women only more horrible.

During the years 1933-1938, there were domestic problems at 
home as well as abroad.

Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was 
Handel.

The family group consisted of three adults and six 
adultresses.

Richard Ill became a userer when he took the throne from 
Edward IV.

Growing on the lattice work were pink and yellow concubines.

Necessity is the mother of convention.

Zanzibar is noted for its monkeys. The British Governor 
lives there.

Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill the king by 
attacking his manhood.

This book belongs in the anals of English literature.

Defoe wrote simply and sometimes crudly.

Shakespeare wrote tragedies, comedies, and errors.

Poe was kicked out of West Point for gamboling.

Chaucer was a great English poet who wrote many poems and 
verses and sometimes wrote literature.

Whitman wrote much illiteration and compacked verse. He 
often wrote long and rumbling lines.

Floods from the Mississippi may be prevented by putting big 
dames in the river.

A passive verb is when the subject is the sufferer, as "I am 
loved."

Unleavened bread is made without any ingredients.

They (the Puritans) thought every event significant since it 
was a massage from God.

In "The Glass Menagerie," Laura's leg keeps coming between 
her and other people.

In Baalbek the Romans left many huge erections.

Saving the best for last, I now unveil my all time favorite, 
true life classroom boner.

In my freshman English class at Haverford College, a fellow 
scholar wrote in his composition: "The girl tumbled down the 
stairs and lay prostitute at the bottom."

In the margin of the student's paper the professor 
commented: "My dear sir, you must learn to distinguish 
between a fallen woman and one who has merely slipped!"
                                                           

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