Day 6

I borrowed a book from my parents last weekend which was a collection of excerpts from college student's history papers. These excerpts were chosen because they are hilarious to read, and they make you wonder what exactly the student was thinking when they wrote it. It was written by a history professor who has apparently seen it all...literally. Let me share some of the pure magic of it with you, and may you enjoy it.

As I was reading through the book, I was able to detect certain groupings that the entries fell into. Many of the entries had very interesting spelling, and it made for some very funny writing. Some students were factually correct, but they couldn't seem to quite spit out what they were trying to say. For example:

"The ball of events and stoppers that were used to stop it from rolling only added to its momentum which kept it rolling."

and

"There was Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. Lower Egypt was actually farther up than Upper Egypt, which was, of course, lower down than the upper part."

Then there were the odd ways of describing things:

"The historicle (their spelling) period ended shortly after World War II-III. Historians and others attempt to pin the tail on the reluctant monkey of change."

"Another problem was that France was full of French people."

"The Popes, of course, were usually Catholic."

Some of the entries just really didn't make any sense at all:

"North Africa is the region which lies in the northern part of Africa. (So far, so good.) It is therefore not in Africa. (How was that conclusion drawn from the previous sentence?) Without a doubt this was the Middle East, where all bets were misplaced. (Huh?)

My favorite, however, were the ones where the students could not find a word in the English language that properly conveyed the idea they were trying to present, so they just made up new ones:

"History grundled onward. International relationships moved to the broodle stage."

"Society was crumpity."

And my personal favorite:

"Society woozed out of the Nile 300,000 years ago. The Nile was a river that had some water in it. Every year it would flood and irritate the land. This tended to make the people nervous." (Who wouldn't be nervous on irritated land?)

I hope you enjoyed that, my friends, as much as I did. If you want to feel really good about yourself, you should read the whole thing. The book is called "Non Campus Mentis" by Anders Henriksson. It's a little sad to think about how these students made it to college, but also really funny at the same time. Enjoy.