And in an almost completely unrelated anecdote, a substitute teacher in my kindergarten class solemnly informed us that the day after Tuesday is pronounced just like it’s spelled, “Wed-nez-day”. I remember that one some 35 years later.
Mmmm. So, you don’t teach American history, then?
I’ve done this so many times.
Complicated subjects are hard to teach off the cuff. You end up making errors.
I used to teach English as a Foreign Language in an elementary school in BFE, Bulgaria. I didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of mistakes because I was teaching my native language at a pretty low level of skill. But my counterpart? Oy, she taught our kids SO MANY WRONG THINGS, it was pretty painful. It was really difficult to interrupt her and tell her she was making a mistake in front of the kids, too. What killed me was that she would defend her errors by telling me that she was teaching them BRITISH English (which was what we were supposed to be teaching) and I was AMERICAN and didn’t get it.
Together, we made a pretty good team, though. She was about a zillion times better than I was at maintaining class discipline, especially during my first year when my Bulgarian was pretty iffy (calling out my kids in English had no effect, and they’d just laugh at my crappy Bulgarian). And I have hope that after two years of working together, she’s not teaching the kids that you should say “this is chair” or that the word for that year before first grade is “child garden” anymore.
Yes, but the better college wouldn’t have been as conveniently located, nor would it have given me about $125k worth of tuition for free. 
Without the context of the actual story it’s hard to say, but perhaps the professor was just trying to get the writer to give a better description than they provided–going into more detail as to what, exactly, they were trying to convey, instead of just saying “permanently attached.”
Are you remembering that right? The rule of thumb I learned is that to tell the distance you are from the lightning is to count the number of seconds between the flash and the thunder, then divide by 5. That gives you the distance to the lightning in miles. For example, if you see the lightning, then 20 seconds later, hear the thunder, then you are about 4 miles away from where the lightning struck. It is generally regarded as accurate enough and most of the people I know are aware of this rule.
My 11th-grade History of Philosophy teacher wouldn’t have understood that in a hundred years. The 12th-grade Philosophy teacher would have loved it
I am a beginning piano student. I’ve been taking lessons for three years and, as an adult learner with no musical background, I don’t know much. But I do know that in 4/4 time, a dotted quarter note gets one and a half beats. My piano teacher says it gets two beats. Her reasoning: the dotted half gets three beats (two for the note and one for the dot) so the dot adds a beat. I know the dot adds half the value of the note, but I don’t argue. I just play it the way I know it is supposed to be and it all works out.
Besides, she’s a sweetie, I have learned a lot, and am playing (and enjoying) the piano in a way I never thought I could. If she were teaching me brain surgery and didn’t know the difference between the cerebellum and the hypothalamus, I could get in trouble (I’m guessing). But it’s just me dinking around on the piano.
Yes, but Cardinal was talking about people who think the rule is one second per mile, not five.