Misphrased excerpts from students’ science exam papers
- Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the organ of the species.
- Benjamin Franklin produced electricity by rubbing cats backwards.
- The dodo is a bird that is almost decent by now.
- The process of turning steam back into water again is called conversation.
- The earth makes one resolution every 24 hours.
- Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them.
- Algebraical symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about.
- The moon is a planet just like the earth, only it is even deader.
- Dew is formed on leaves when the sun shines down on them and makes them perspire.
- A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene triangle.
- Blood flows down one leg and up the other.
- A person should take a bath once in the summer, and not quite so often in the winter.
- The hookworm larvae enter the human body through the soul.
The prayer said before the finals
Now I lay me
Down to study
I pray the Lord
I won’t go nutty
If I should fail to
Learn this junk
I pray the Lord
I do not flunk
But if I do
Don’t pity me at all
Just lay my bones
In the study hall
Tell my prof
I did my best
Then pile my
Books upon my chest
Now I lay me
Down to rest
And pray I pass
Tomorrow’s test
If I should die
Before I wake
That’s one less test
I’ll have to take
English is a
stupid language
Let’s face it…English is a stupid language.
There is no egg in the eggplant, and neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.
English muffins were not invented in England, and French fries were not invented in France.
We sometimes take English for granted.
But if we examine its paradoxes, we find that quicksand takes you down slowly. Boxing rings are square.
- If writers write, how come fingers don’t fing?
- If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn’t the plural of phone booth be phone beeth?
- If the teacher taught, why didn’t the preacher praught?
- If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what the heck does a humanitarian eat?
- Why do people park on driveways and drive on parkways?
- How can the weather be as hot as hell on one day and as cold as hell on another?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language where a house can burn up as it burns down.