ID: 14798
College
A co-worker of mine fielded phone calls from his Alumni Association every three months for about five years, ostensibly checking to see that his records were up to date, and coincidentally asking if he'd like to donate to the Alumni Association. Once, when checking his records, the employee asked, "Is xxx-xxxx your current phone number?"
Seeing his opportunity, he answered no, and made up a new phone number. He hasn't heard from them since.
ID: 15435
College
1. All of you, stand in a straight circle.
2. I have two daughters, and both are girls!
3. Both the three of you get out of the class.
4. I saw you with my wife.....in the theatre.
5. Open the windows let the Airforce come in.
6. Boys go to the right, girls to the left. The rest follow me.
7. How dare you look at the monkey outside the window when I'm sitting here!
ID: 12590
College
Here is a collection of freshman history bloopers collected by a Canadian history professor (Anders Henrickson) over the years.
During the Middle Ages, everybody was middle aged. Church and state were cooperatic. Middle Evil society was made up of monks, lords and surfs. It is unfortunate that we do not have a medivel European laid out on a table before us, ready for dissection.
After a revival of infantile commerce slowly creeoed into Europe, merchants appeared. Some were sitters and some were drifters. They roamed from town to town exposing themselves and organized big fairies in the countryside.
Mideval people were violent. Murder during this Period was nothing. Everybody killed someone. England fought numerously for land in France and ended up wining and losing. The Crusades were a series of military expaditions made by Christians seeking to free the holy land (the "Home Town" of Christ) from the Islams.
In the 1400 hundreds most Englishmen were perpendicular. A class of yeowls arose. Finally Europe caught the Black Death. The bubonic plague is a social disease in the sense that it can be transmitted by intercourse and other etceteras. It was spread from port to port by infected rats. Victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. The plague also helped the emergance of the English language as the national language of England, France and Italy.
The Middle Ages slimpared to a halt. The renasence bolted in from the blue. Life reeked with joy. Italy became robust, and more individuals felt the value of their human being. Italy, of course, was much closer to the rest of the world thanks to Northern Europe. Man was determined to civilise himself and his brothers, even if heads had to roll! It became sheik to be educated. Art was on a more associated level. Europe was full of incredable churches with great art bulging out of their doors. Renaissance merchants were beautiful and almost lifelike.
The Reformnation happened when German nobles resented the idea that tithes were going to Papal France or the Pope, thus enriching Catholic coiffures. Traditions had become oppressive so they too were crushed in the wake of man's quest for ressurection above the not-just-social beast he had become. An angry Martin Luther nailed 95 theocrats to a church door. Theologically, Luthar was into reorientation mutation. Calvinism was the most convenient religion since the days of the ancients. Anabaptist services tended to be migratory. The Popes, of course, were usually Catholic. Monks went right on seeing themselves as worms. The last Jesuit priest died in the 19th century.
ID: 16007
College
Teacher: The weather here is too bad. The winter is too cold, and the summer is too hot. Fortunately, I have an air condition in my room. Oh, do you have air condition in your dorm?
Students: (laughing) No way.
Teacher: At least you can use a fan, can't you?
Students: (upset) No way! The electricity is cut off at 11 o'clock.
Teacher: (puzzled) No air condition, no fan, six people in such a small room, and the weather is so hot, how can you sleep?
Students: We don't sleep.
Teacher: (surprised) Oh, if you don't sleep, how can you study?
Students: We don't study, either.
Teacher: ...
ID: 14148
College
The old pastor made it to a practice to visit the parish school one day a week.
He walked into the 4th grade class, where the children were studying the states, and asked them how many states they could name.
They came up with about 40 names.
He jokingly told them that in his day students knew the names of all the states.
One lad raised his hand and said, "Yes, but in those days there were only 13."
ID: 17441
College
Super Agility: "Oh look, a bullet. Better dodge that!" *mega-jump!*
Bulletproof: "Oh look, a bullet. Meh, who cares?"
Super Smart: "Eureka! A Bullet! It going 60 MPH will hit me in 5 seconds if it contacts, but there is only a 1 in 7 chance it will hit me, the decimal being 0.1428571429 to the tenth pl-OOOFF!"
Which do YOU want?
Me: Super Agility.
Comment for your choice, but it doesn't have to be one of these.
ID: 17438
College
1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
3. Employ the vernacular.
4. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
5. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
6. Remember to never split an infinitive.
7. Contractions aren't necessary.
8. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
9. One should never generalize.
10. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
11. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
12. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
13. Be more or less specific.
14. Understatement is always best.
15. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
16. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
17. The passive voice is to be avoided.
18. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
19. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
20. Who needs rhetorical questions?
21. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
22. Don't never use a double negation.
23. capitalize every sentence and remember always end it with point
24. Do not put statements in the negative form.
25. Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
26. Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
27. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
28. A writer must not shift your point of view.
29. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.)
30. Don't overuse exclamation marks!!
31. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to the irantecedents.
32. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
33. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
34. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
35. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
36. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
37. Always pick on the correct idiom.
38. The adverb always follows the verb.
39. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; They're old hat; seek viable alternatives.
ID: 17430
College
Premise I: Knowledge is power.
Premise II: Power corrupts.
Conclusion: Therefore, knowledge corrupts.
ID: 15589
College
45 Fun Things to Do on a Paper You Don't Care About
1. Type every word in a different font. Alternate really big fonts with really small fonts.
2. Support your thesis with quotes from your VCR manual.
3. Write the entire paper on Post-it notes and turn it in by sticking them all over the professor's door.
4. Switch the names of prominent history figures with the names of your friends, classmates, etc. Claim that your roommate led the Spanish Armada.
5. Write a paper discussing why Michelangelo got to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, but Van Gogh didn't. Discuss whether Van Gogh would have used nunchakus or katanas.
6. Write your paper by cutting out words from magazines and sticking them on the page, ransom-note style.
7. End the paper with "This paper will self-destruct in 10 seconds".
8. Perfume the paper with catnip. Explain that it was to keep your dog from eating it.
9. If assigned a paper in philosophy class, explain that you can't do the paper because you're not sure if the class really exists, or if it and the professor are just illusions created by your subconscious. If you do end up writing the paper, write about whether or not the paper actually exists.
10. If assigned a 2000-word paper, draw two pictures of what the paper was supposed to be about. After all, a picture is worth 1000 words, right?
11. Type gibberish. When you hand it in, claim that your computer crashed while you were printing it, and you couldn't retrieve the original.
12. Cite issues of Spiderman and Batman as resources in your bibliography.
13. Turn the paper in by making paper airplanes out of the pages of the paper and attempting to fly them onto the professor's desk.
14. The night before the paper is due, call the professor and explain that you can't turn your paper in because it contains sensitive military information and is only available on a "need to know" basis. Insist that General Schwarzkopf says you should get an 'A'.
15. Write your history paper on parchment, using a quill. Say that you were trying to get the feel for the period.
16. Turn in a letter you wrote to your cousin. When the teacher confronts you about it, say that you must have gotten the letter and the paper mixed up. Say that you'll turn the paper in as soon as you get it back, but your cousin lives in Siberia, so it might take a while.(This is a nifty way to get an extension.)
17. When writing an especially long paper, put a recipe for chocolate cake in the middle and see if the professor notices.
18. Tell the professor that you need an extension because one of your primary sources is an old wise man in Tibet and he won't see you until the next full moon.
19. Paint a large white stripe down the front of your paper. Say that on the way to class, your dropped it in the street and it got run over by one of those trucks that paint lines on the road.
20. Make a footprint on the back of one of the pages. When questioned by the professor, act like it's nothing unusual. After all, he did tell you to include footnotes.
21. Bring candles and incense to class. Before handing in the paper, perform an elaborate ceremony, entreating the gods to bless the paper and correct all your typos.
22. Make a tape of you singing the contents of your paper, opera-style, and hand that in.
23. Write your psychology paper on possible genetic anomalies that might cause a person to prefer anchovies.
24. Hand your paper in in a sealed envelope with postmarks from several different countries on it. Say that you wanted several different perspectives on your work.
25. TTyyppee eevveerryy lleetttteerr ttwwiiccee..
26. Get a large piece of paper or canvas. Smear paint all over it and hand it in as your paper. Explain that the topic was such an emotional one for you, and that mere words couldn't possibly express what you had to say.
27. Compare and contrast the characters of James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard. Claim that one is actually Hamlet, and the other is King Lear. Say that Worf is Ophelia.
28. Carve your paper on the bathroom wall.
29. Refuse to do the paper on account of the fact that you are a member of Greenpeace and strongly object to the gratuitous slaughter of trees caused by the massive amount of paper used in writing assignments.
30. Put nonsense words down as quotes. Say that you are quoting the words of a well-known Zen master who was speaking in tongues at the time.
31. Use a forklift to bring your paper to class, even if it's only a few pages. Explain that it involved some very heavy reading.
32. Poke several holes in the paper. Say that you were mobbed by crows on the way to class.
33. Print all the pages on one sheet of paper, with the text overlapping. Say that that was all the paper you had.
34. Write about whether Plato would have said that Miller Light is "less filling" or that it "tastes great". Also explain why Aristotle would have taken the opposite view. Try to predict both philosphers' reactions to Spuds McKensie.
35. Draw pictures of your professor in the margins.
36. Make your paper one long, neverending sentence that goes on for pages and pages and pages; use alot of semi-colons, commas, and other interesting, rarely-used punctuation marks [(for example), an interesting one: the colon_] but never ever end the sentence {[_-\|/??!]}.
37. Staple a picture of an academic building to the paper. Cite the picture as a resource.
38. On the day the paper is due, skip into class, waving the paper and screaming, "I have a paper! I have a paper!". Run around the class a few times, then joyfully throw it out the window. Laugh and yell, "There's my paper!", then run outside to get it. Repeat this all through the period, or until the prof throws you out.
39. Come to class leading a horse or camel. When asked to turn in the paper, take it out of one of the saddlebags, then shoot the horse/camel/whatever away. Refuse to discuss it.
40. Draw obscure connections between totally unrelated things. For example, claim that abnormal amounts of neutrino activity in Germany caused Hitler to invade France, or that the Roman empire collapsed because of a shortage of qualified botanists.
41. Refer to all prominant historical figures by nicknames. For example, call George Washington "Georgie". Call Ben Franklin "Sparky".
42. Pwetend you have a speech impediment and awways type w's whenevew you weawwy want to type r's ow l's.
43. Ol, switch alound arr the l's and r's in youl papel, rike Monty Python did in Queen Erizabeth the Thild.
44. When your prof asks for an outline of your paper, draw the outline of the piece of paper you typed it on and hand it in.
45. Spill a martini on your sociology paper. Say that you wrote it in a bar so that you could see "sociology in action"