The next time students ask why they have to learn grammar and sentence structure, let them read a few of these:

• The burglar was about 30 years old, white, 5′ 10″, with wavy hair weighing about 150 pounds.
• The family lawyer will read the will tomorrow at the residence of Mr. Hannon, who died June 19 to accommodate his relatives.
• Mrs. Shirley Baxter, who went deer hunting with her husband, is very proud that she was able to shoot a fine buck as well as her husband.
• Organ donations from the living reached a record high last year, outnumbering donors who are dead for the first time.
• The dog was hungry and made the mistake of nipping a 2-year-old that was trying to force feed it in his ear.
• We spent most of our time sitting on the back porch watching the cows playing Scrabble and reading.
• Hunting can also be dangerous, as in the case of pygmies hunting elephants armed only with spears.

(Special thanks to Pastor Tim for these!)

On this date in 1944 the song “Mairzy Doats” by the Merry Macs sat atop the pop music charts. The lyrics are deceptive:

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey.
A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?
Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey.
A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?

Then we get a few lines that make sense:

If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey,
Sing “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy.”

The song takes advantage of a phenomenon sometimes called “mondegreens” and sometimes “egg corns.” People mis-hear words, often song lyrics, with often hilarious results:

• “The ants are my friend, they’re blowin’ in the wind” is a mondegreen of “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind” by Bob Dylan.
• “And there’s a wino down the road/I should’ve stole his Oreos” should be “And as we wind on down the road/Our shadows taller than our souls” in Led Zeppellin’s “Stairway to Heaven”
• “There’s a bathroom on the right” is a famous mis-hearing of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “There’s a bad moon on the rise.”
• One person misheard Will Smith’s “Gettin jiggy with it” as “Kick a chicken with it.”
• And a line in Nelly Furtado’s “Turn Off the Light,” “I looked above the other day,” sounded to one listener like “I licked a bird the other day.”

I once mentioned in class that I didn’t have much time for “points grubbers,” kids who will argue at excessive length for one or two points on a quiz. I discovered later that at least one student thought I was saying “point scrubbers,” which, actually, isn’t that far off.

What words or phrases have YOUR students misheard?

This came in an e-mail from a friend, another English teacher. It’s a great example of an occupational hazard — we just can’t help noticing lapses in other people’s writing!

Is proofreading an important life skill? You be the judge.

I had a colonoscopy last Friday and the receptionist told me I needed to read the anesthesia disclaimer before signing it - that the nurse would require my signature on a form stating that I had read and understood it. Right in the MIDDLE of the list of awful stuff that can happen to the patient was this statement:

“…may aggravate preEXITING conditions.” Given the nature of the procedure, I was amused. In a more serious situation, I would have found the misspelling ominous. The nurse was NOT amused. … I am definitely in the wrong business!

Sometimes a sense of humor is just not optional.

The world as students have explained it to their teachers …

The world as students have explained it to their teachers …

• Syntax is all the money collected at the church from sinners.
• The blood circulates through the body by flowing down one leg and up the other.
• In spring, the salmon swim upstream to spoon.
• Iron was discovered because someone smelt it.
• A person should take a bath once in the summer, not so often in the winter.
• The word trousers is an uncommon noun because it is singular at the top and plural at the bottom.

The world as students have explained it to their teachers …

• A virgin forest is a forest where the hand of man has never set foot.
• The general direction of the Alps is straight up.
• A city purifies its water supply by filtering the water then forcing it through an aviator.
• Most of the houses in France are made of plaster of Paris.
• The people who followed the Lord were called the 12 opossums.
• The spinal column is a long bunch of bones. The head sits on the top and you sit on the bottom.
• We do not raise silk worms in the United States, because we get our silk from rayon. He is a larger worm and gives more silk.

A humorous look at the world as students have explained it to their teachers …

• A census taker is a man who goes from house to house increasing the population.
• The future of “I give” is “I take.”
• The parts of speech are lungs and air.
• The inhabitants of Moscow are called Mosquitoes.
• Water is composed of two gins. Oxygin and hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water.
• (Define H2O and CO2.) H2O is hot water and CO2 is cold water.

The world as students have explained it to their teachers …

• Mushrooms always grow in damp places, which is why they look like umbrellas.
• Momentum is something you give a person when they go away.
• Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun, but I have never been able to make out the numbers.
• When planets run around and around in circles, we say they are orbiting. When people do it, we say they are crazy.
• One of the main causes of dust is janitors.

The world as students have explained it to their teachers …

• You can listen to thunder and tell how close you came to getting hit. If you don’t hear it, you got hit, so never mind.
• There are 26 vitamins in all, but some of the letters are yet to be discovered.
• Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let people know they’re there.
• The cause of perfume disappearing is evaporation. Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of things, like when people forget to put the top on.
• Water vapor gets together in a cloud. When it is big enough to be called a drop, it does.