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STASHED BY: You can call me, 'Sir' Bunni
After grading for almost 24 hours straight, the sentence “This day in age the inner workings of companies need to run both smoothly internally and externally in order to be successful in our dog eat dog world” is enough to make me swallow a cyanide tablet just to end the pain.
March 31, 2008 at 5:27 AM ::
In the immortal words of Calculon: “That was so terrible I think it gave me cancer!”
bakerina on 03/31/08 at 07:34 AM ::
I must find out more about these so-called “external inner workings.” Since they mention dogs, I’m surprised they passed up the chance to use the excellent “like a hidden dog penis” analogy.
Keith on 03/31/08 at 08:20 AM ::
You would be well justified in a direct assault, I do believe. You get a free pass.
Jo on 03/31/08 at 02:41 PM ::
Bunni, the middle-school English teacher’s job is indeed the toughest job on the planet.
What, not middle school? University? Business writing class? Tha’fuck! Go ahead and burn down the city. No jury would ever convict you.
'mouse on 03/31/08 at 02:47 PM ::
If you go off, please keep in mind that shooting poor grammarians from a clock tower and handing them copies of The Watchtower are two separate, yet equally destructive forces. One puts the student out of their misery instantly, while the other results in a slow and agonizing life before death, and yet, is surprisingly not illegal.
Keith on 03/31/08 at 03:24 PM ::
This is one of the few Scrines I desperately hope is pure fiction.
Can I stop poking my eyes out yet? Is it safe?
boot on 04/01/08 at 03:36 PM ::
Wish all you want, doll, it’s a real sentence from a real paper.
The worst part is that isn’t close to the worst sentence I read while correcting. It was just that after 24 hours of grading, sleep deprived, STILL struck me as particularly ridiculous.
Bunni on 04/01/08 at 06:10 PM ::
Is it a phenomenon of people just not caring? I care, but I left formal education very early and spent many years trying not to let it show. In other words, caring about grammar and my expression.
I think you’re right. It’s particularly ridiculous because they’re trying - and failing miserably - to be cleverly expressive. Then they just seem to fall over their own words. Trip, fall down stairs and end up in a bloody pool of words, in fact.
Come on, Bunni. Share your pain. Hit us with the worst.
boot on 04/01/08 at 06:21 PM ::
Part of it is not caring. The other part is that grammar has effectively been dropped from American education because it’s not fun and it’s difficult to learn. American education has shifted from being about learning to being about fun and ego stroking. Thus many of my students come to college with no idea how to begin diagramming a sentence and some of them an unclear grasp of capitalization. Thus at this late date, it’s VERY difficult for me to teach them grammar because they don’t have a solid enough foundation, which is compounded by the fact that they think they don’t need to learn because they talk English “just fine.”
I’ve blogged ALOT of bad sentence at my blog over the years. The one that sticks is a student once wrote: “People who think business ethics are easy are fallacated in their thinking.”
Bunni on 04/01/08 at 06:29 PM ::
Well, of course. Because their thinking is fallacacious.
(Oh, god, I hate myself now.)
bakerina on 04/01/08 at 06:39 PM ::
Great, I have to wipe all the coffee off my screen again. Thanks, you two.
(fallacated!)
boot on 04/01/08 at 06:42 PM ::
I can do you one better. Every semester at NYU, we were asked to photocopy one of our worst papers with and without comments. This was called “norming” to ensure we were all basically grading on the same principles. When I handed out this paper, the profs all joked and laughed for 20 minutes about the word “fallacated.” When I handed out my corrections, they all agreed UNANIMOUSLY that I shouldn’t have corrected the blatantly invented word in the first sentence. Why? “Because it is important to start these corrections with ‘positive feedback’ so the student doesn’t feel bad about her performance.” Thus quoth the department head.
It was at that moment that I realized that my undergraduate degree at NYU was the most expensive beer coaster I ever bought.
Bunni on 04/01/08 at 10:13 PM ::
This is not true. This is NOT true. This is NOT TRUE. This is not true. THIS IS NOT TRUE. thisisnottruethisisnottruethisisnottrue…
(Uh-oh, I think my brain just broke)
boot on 04/03/08 at 01:14 AM ::
Oh, Bunni. I wish you’d made that up.
pam on 04/03/08 at 07:21 AM ::
So do I, but when it comes to craptacular student writing they do far “better” (and by better I mean worse) than I could ever imagine.
Bunni on 04/03/08 at 07:23 AM ::