Thursday, March 30, 2006

10 out of 10 for effort

Real blunders from real student papers. Apparently. I can't find the original sources for either article, sorry.

According to this site, the first one was compiled by Anders Hendricksson (that first link misspells his name) using extracts from student papers at McMaster University and the University of Alberta, Canada. It appeared in the Wilson Quarterly, Spring 1983, and Mr Hendricksson later published a book using the same or similar material - Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students.

And I've got no further info on the second one. So, without further ado: some excerpts!

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After a revival of infantile commerce slowly creeped into Europe merchants appeared. They roamed from town to town exposing themselves and organizing big fairies in the countryside. Mideval people were violent. Murder during this period was nothing. Everybody killed someone.
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The Reformation happened when German nobles resented the idea that tithes were going to Papal France or the Pope thus enriching Catholic coiffures. An angry Martin Luther nailed 95 theocrats to a church door.
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The enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire wrote a book called Candy that got him into trouble with Frederick the Great. Philosophers were unknown yet and the fundamental stake was one of religious toleration slightly confused with defeatism.
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Great Brittian, the USA and other European countrys had demicratic leanings. The middle class was tired and needed a rest. The old order could see the lid holding down new ideas beginning to shake. Among the goals of the chartists were universal suferage and an anal parliament. Voting was to be done by ballad.
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Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.
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Without the Greeks we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns - Corinthian, Doric, and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intollerable. Achilles appears in The Illiad, by Homer. Homer also wrote the Oddity, in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.
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In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athens was democratic because people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn't climb over to see what their neighbors were doing.
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History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.
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Then came the Middle Ages. King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harold mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized by Bernard Shaw, and victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. Finally the Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense.
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The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee.
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The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.
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George Washington married Martha Curtis and in due time became the Father of Our Country.
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On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.
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Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy. Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the Autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees.
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Bach was the most famous composer in the world. and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English.

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:) Bravo, I say. Why be right when you can be funny?

Edit: I've just noticed: two lots of "the enlightenment was a reasonable time", and not identical either. Hmph! Not impressed.