Thinking about it and making an effort, I can pronounce both words correctly, but 9 times out of 10 I probably pronounce both as quiet. Actually, I quiet is the pronunciation I hear most people use for quite.
I had my pre-calc teacher tell me flat out that a line and parabola can either have two crossings or zero. When I said that a line could be tangent to the parabola, she flat out told me it couldn’t happen (never mind that a parabola with the vertex on a line automatically meets this critera, among many other lines that can be tangent to one of the sides). Why? The book said 0 or 2.
I looked at her like she was nuts, said I think the book is wrong, so she snarkily said, well, then go ahead and find one of those tangent lines (not the vertex line). When she checked back 3 minutes later and said “so how’s that coming” (and not in an ‘I’m encouraging you to broaden your math capabilities so I’m letting you figure this out’ but in a ‘you stupid little kid…that’ll teach you to question me’ tone). When I looked at her, and told her the equation for the line, she looked like she’d been shot…when she looked at my work and realized I was right, she tried massively to backpedal in front of the whole class to save face. Of course, this didn’t even count that there are many lines that will only cross a parabola once without being tangent.
I usually wasn’t a dick in class like that, but most of my teachers actually used critical thinking skills. She was a terrible teacher, and only knew enough for each lesson…she did not have a deep understanding of the subject material. And she was smug. She was very, very annoying.
On the first day of a class while studying abroad in college, the professor insisted that there wasn’t any racism in the US because there were several Jews in President Clinton’s cabinet. I left at the break and never returned.
I had some of ‘the usual suspects’ back when I was in school: a science teacher who insisted that blood is blue until air hits it (that’s why our veins are blue!); a history teacher who insisted that Columbus truly did discover America, and no one else found it first (Uhhhh, who were all those native-type people then, that were already here?).
But the misinformation that pissed me off the most involved one of my kids. My oldest was in 4th grade. After dinner one night, I was mixing myself a drink. She came to me and said “You know that even one drink is dangerous, right?” I asked her where she had heard that, and she said her teacher told her. I said “Well, if you have a problem with alcohol, or if you’re pregnant, or if you’re about to drive somewhere, or if you’re on certain prescription medications, then, yes, even one drink can be dangerous; if those things don’t apply, there’s actually compelling evidence that one drink can be good for you”.
Next parent night at the school, I approached her teacher about it. Her teacher said “Well, that’s just something we tell the children in hopes they will never start drinking”. I told the teacher in no uncertain terms that deliberately imparting incorrect information is never right. The teacher never cared for me much after that.
In about grade 3 I had a teacher that insisted that carbon dioxide is lighter than air because it is a part of the air!
I had the Peggy Hill of Latin teachers in ninth grade. Only later did I find out just how awful her pronunciation was. She must gotten her degree from a correspondence school. She was a wonderful etymology/mythology teacher and I guess the Latin itself was accurate other than the mispronunciations.
I had a teacher the pronounced “widow” with a long i. Another one pronounced Poseidon (Puh-SIGH-den) as POY-sih-don. That teacher also had my brother in class and she told that class that Queen Elizabeth only had two children, not 4. This was in the mid/late 70’s. Turned out her encyclopedia was printed before the births of Princes Andrew and Edward. Ours was not and my brother, in his righteous indignation, brought it in to prove her wrong.
I had an otherwise brilliant criminal law professor who said “testesterone” instead of “testosterone.” Repeatedly.
This isn’t true.
9th grade biology teacher insisted that mature red blood cells had nuclei and DNA. I brought her the textbook and showed her she was wrong.
Then there was the English teacher who insisted it was “diety” and not “deity” and ridiculed me for protesting.
norinew-if it isn’t the air mixing with blood that makes it red (the explanation I remember), then what is the Dope?
The only time I remember a teacher being wrong was when he got the lines of latitude and longitude wrong. Though to be fair, it is confusing when the numbers along a line of latitude represent the degrees of longitude.
I think.
I’m not even sure if I have that right.
High school history teacher told us that if the US President and Vice President are both killed, the Secretary of State becomes president. (And this was less than a year after Al Haig’s press conference following the Reagan shooting.)
Blood is always red in color (sometimes bright red, sometimes darker). I’ve observed surgeries, and I was in an anatomy class where I dissected a human cadaver, and veins don’t look blue inside the body (when you can see them directly). Veins only look blue when seen from outside, through the skin.
From Wikipedia:
And here’s a more detailed blog post explaining the findings of a scientific paper.
I had a ninny of an English teacher during my senior year of high school who steadfastly refused to believe West Side Story is basically a modernization of Romeo and Juliet.
FUBARed it!
The Wikipedia entry is a great explanation of where the misprception comes from.
My son’s second grade teacher told her class that [elemental] mercury was a clear red liquid, which could be seen in modern thermometers. :rolleyes:
More esoterically, when I was in grad school, I had this environmental law professor who was enamored with the “noble savage” theory, and that uncivilized people never damaged their environment, wasted anything, or killed needlessly. I thought that this idea was basically bullshit. Uncivilized people were trying to survive, period.
I contended that uncivilized people may have not have caused significant environmental harm only because of their low numbers and lack of industrial technology. Whereas a small population can dump their untreated wastes into the nearest river with few consequences, a modern city cannot. I also provided counter-examples for “not wasting,” such as the practice of driving whole herds of animals off of cliffs, like with the buffalo jumps.
I did the same damn thing in high school, and for much the same reason!
The answer I got was, “Well, they’d try to use everything they could.” No shit, sherlock.
8th grade. Mathematics teacher. Stated that 9999/3000 was an irrational number (Because it’s 3.333 and 3.333 appeared to her the same as 3.333333…etc…[10/3], and since 3.3333…etc… doesn’t end it was an irrational number according to her)
Lost 3 points out of 20 on this question. I was furious and tried to explain to her why she was wrong but she wouldn’t budge. My parents of course wouldn’t believe that I could be right and the teacher totally wrong. I was doubly furious as a result.
I still think of her with some irritation (she made numerous other mistakes, but it’s the one that sticked with me)