It's just after 1:00 on Saturday and I am done with grading. Yay! I didn't collect as many gems from the flood of papers as I usually do. Most of the awfulness was just plain awful, not funny-awful. But there were a few awesome keepers worth sharing with y'all.
1) "Up through the 1900s, ethnicity threw-up boundaries between people."
It's the hyphen (that makes "threw-up" kind of like a noun--but not really--just enough to conjure the image of vomit) that does this one in, of course. Nothing major, but it made me laugh, and then gag a bit.
2) "Connie could no think at all. She is petrified in udder disbelief."
Sorry, but "udder disbelief" just kills me. I could try to explain how this is wrong, but if you don't get it, it's like a cow's opinion. And no, this student is NOT an ESL writer. He's just a horrible editor of his own work. In his next sentence, he refers to a "gold hot rub," when what he really means is "hot rod." At least I hope that's what he means...
3) And finally, I've saved the best for last: "When we think of love and sex, we think of happy endings and how the female is getting her happy ending. This semester, we looked at authors that take it beyond that."
Look--I know that on the surface, this is a perfectly harmless set of sentences, but come on, doesn't it also sound like the opening from an final exam essay for "PORN 101: New Depictions of Female Satisfaction in Adult Films"? By the way, I bet that's a real course somewhere...like Berkeley.
7 comments:
Okay, "gold hot rubs" and "happy endings"? Just what exactly are you teaching in these courses? And where do I sign up?
Oh, and congrats on being done with grading!!!!! :)
You know, the idea of racial and ethnic differences vomiting divisiveness is actually kind of poetic.
If it is Porn 101, then I want to know where the authors are taking it since it's beyond happy endings.
Great stuff! I always feel just a tad guilty for getting a laugh at their expense, but you have freed me up from that. :-)
ps...I think we were in Wyler's Early American lit class together in grad school
Congratulations on being finished grading!! And thank you for making me laugh :)
Amber: You know, it doesn't matter what I am teaching. It can always go to a weird place. I choose not to blame myself, although that is the obvious answer.
Hannah: I do feel a bit guilty for laughing at their mistakes, but I gotta do what I gotta do to get through the grading. That's a poor excuse, I know--and doesn't even begin to address the impropriety of actually PUBLISHING their mistakes. Oh well.
KRGP: Yes--it is poetic--angry post-colonial poetic.
David: You have to take the class to find out.
Kate: Thanks! Happy to make you laugh.
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