I've been grading papers all day, an activity which sucks all the vital energy out of me, leaving me in zombie state, unable to even read, which ironically is the very activity I need to be doing. By this time of the semester, I know the students pretty well, and I have the bad habit of pulling out the papers that I know are going to be well-written and interesting – the kind of essays I love to read – and grading them first. That leaves me to slog through the unfocused essays when I am tired. Yes, it's a bad strategy, I know.
Late this afternoon, I read an introduction that included a line about the evils of satin, and I thought to myself, "Well, that's interesting." I didn't know the fabric was controversial. Maybe he was going to talk about sweatshops or classicism or the pressure for women to conform to gender roles. All kinds of interesting possibilities raced through my mind.
It wasn't until I reached the second paragraph and he started talking about God and nature that I realized who Satin was. Not the fabric. Not even a cool superpower or a comic book character.
I admit that I was a little disappointed.
20 comments:
Ooh, me too. 'Cause I could see a real debate about whether satin is more evil than say...merino wool. Satin is soft and silky, sure. But if you have sheets made out of it WHAM you slide right off the bed. Merino Wool, on the other hand, is warm and toasty and can be made into very thin, luxurious sweaters, but so itchy.
liz: I am allergic to wool ... even the thought of it makes me itch.
I prefer cotton sheets.
I have to admit, I sort of look forward to student typos like this -- there's at least one brilliant one per quarter.
Wow. That's a good one.
Reminds me of the same typo in a student mag many many years ago..."Eve was seduced by satin"
Well, of course she was. Nice clothes clearly did it for her!
On the other hand, I find on the rare occasions that I need to type something about the father of lies, he too often emerges as the rather friendly Stan. Ah well...
That's sad. It's a shame the paper really wasn't about fabric because it probably would have been good.
...reminds me of a paper I once got describing how the rabbit called everyone to worship..... (and let's be honest, wouldn't you happily visit a shul with a rabbit leading prayers...)
Too funny!
Goes to show you that spell check is not perfect! I once had "pubic" in a paper instead of public. But only once, it wasn't repeated page after page. Humiliating though.
Henna, in Alice in Wonderland (or is it Through the Looking Glass?) there's a huge chess game with little streams marking out the squares . . . maybe something like that?
My co-worker sent out a message to the entire NE group about the t-shits she ordered :)
Oh Jo!
Thanks for the laugh. I must tell our minister this. I know he would get a BIG chuckle out of it.
hmm. we once put out a legal brief that referred to the "Untied States of America." the typo was on the front page, all caps and bold. spellcheck is the work of satin.
I'm still fond of the editorial a student of mine wrote a few years back on the right to bare arms. Then there was the one dead set against the cloning of a human bean.
Hahaha!! Satin is so, so evil, the most evil thing you could ever imagine! We must resist Satin!
That was hilarious.
I was hoping it would be about satin, as well. I just heard a fantastic conference paper about rayon and its social meanings.
But he's always been so smooth.
Oh you people are funny, you are! I agree though, would have been funnier if it had been about the Evil Stan!
I always grade the ones I expect to be good last, actually. It's a reward system for me, and it keeps me from penalizing my fair-to-average students, gradewise.
Best typos I ever got were in a paper on Ireland, in which the student had done some kind of funky search-and-replace that stripped much of the letter "L" from the text. It was slow going, but I almost fell on the floor when I read the description of peat: "party decayed pants."
Well, satin is shiny, and shiny things distract us ...
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