Thursday, December 1, 2011

Michigan-Ohio State, and English Gaffes

People make mistakes in my English classes all the time, to the point where I forget most of them.  Every so often though, they stick.  The first one to stick was "matter of fact"  (New to the blog?  Check the archives!), and now I've had 2 more burned into my audial memory.

The second one came about 2 weeks ago, when we were having an open discussion in class about siblings.  One of the heftier ladies in the class was talking about her older sister, and what she did.  They are always encouraged to use new vocabulary, so she was occasionally checking her notes as she talked.  After a brief pause in checking her notes, she announces to the group "my sister has job where she has much sex."

...

"So, Carol... what kind of job does your sister have?"
"She is bank manager."
"...and she has much..."
"sex...es"
"Ohhhhhh.  Carol, you mean 'success'."

And the latest one came earlier today, as I was giving the final exam for one of my students.  I like to warm the students up before the exam, so to start I asked my student about his family, and what they did.  After talking about his parents, he said "my older sister is an accountant."  Only when he said "accountant", he left off the -ant at the end, and the o was silent.

From his perspective, I had a mini coughing fit between his response and correcting his pronunciation.

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For those Wolverine fans out there, here's a few shots of where we watched the game:
California Cantina, where we gathered to watch the game.  I made them put on the sound for the game, which took a team of 3 of them like 20 minutes to figure out.  Fortunately I got there 25 mins early.

For the times when there was too much excitement in The Game, they thoughtfully put a soccer game on the adjacent TV so we could all level out.

Marco and myself.  One of the other 4 Michigan fans there took the picture.  Unsurprisingly, nobody from Ohio State showed up to the bar.

Bliss.  The postgame interview.

For the first time in 7 years (my entire tenure as a Wolverine), we've beaten Ohio State.  It's a nice feeling.  For those of you who don't know, "nice" is an extreme understatement.

I'm currently writing this from my new apartment.  Things are still getting settled, so I'll have a post up about the place soon.

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