Thursday, May 1, 2014

Hooray, hooray, the first of May...

...outdoor fucking begins today!

Come on now. How could I not acknowledge my favorite dirty little line?  It's an old English thing too so it's allright.  A very pleasant aspect of teaching and studying the English language is that, until the famously prudish Victoria ascended, it was a very bawdy language and culture.  I love teaching Shakespeare because it allows me to be fairly dirty in class.  Real English literature isn't happy without the occasional reference to pissing or farting.

On that note, does anyone have good dirty limericks? I'm quite partial to them, so here are a couple of mine:

There once was a fellow named Sweeney
Who spilled some gin on his weenie
Without lacking couth
He added vermouth
And slipped his girl a martini.

There once was a plumber named Lee
Who was plumbing his girl next the sea
She said, "Stop your plumbing!
I hear someone coming!"
Said Lee, "No one's coming but me!"

And some notes from the trenches...

While Mencken said one could never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, he clearly never taught in high school.  It was probably bad enough in his day, but WOW modern kids really don't know their asses from page eight.  One of today's hypothetical questions was "Why are manhole covers round?"  Not a single HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR knew what a manhole was.  Naturally they all think they know everything about sex so they thought the question referred to mens' assholes.  When, in fact, manholes are, you know, those things in streets.  I realize that this is Chesterfield County and there isn't a whole lot of pavement, but..really?  And there was a kid yesterday who didn't know what a chimney is. I mean, come on--these are not exactly esoterica.

I really need to start using the word "esoterica" in class more often, because kids will think I'm saying "erotica" and get all excited about English class.

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Thanks! Now, go get a drink, sit down and enjoy the show.