One of my colleagues just received this from a college student via email. I have X’d out his name and hers:
Mr. XXXXXX, this is xxxxxxx xxxxx from your Tuesday and
Thursday class 2:00-4:00. I have no idea how to write this
paper can you please right me back and let me know in
laments terms what you want this paper to be about. thanks
I’ll give you all kinds of extra credit points if you can figure out what she really meant by “laments.” 
Easiest points ever…
I lament that I know she means “layman’s”.
Dear sweet og, there’s a reason I never became an English teacher, despite the degree.
I’d have to kill them, sorry.
I think/home this a case of using spell check w/o proofreading.
My favorite e-mail was one were a student took great pains to remain anonymous while she told me there was a typo on my web page*, but the e-mail service she used put her full name in the header. She was very surprised when I thanked her the next day.
*I don’t know why she felt the need to be anonymous. She was doing a nice thing.
I’m reading Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible right now, and that sort of misused word is high on my list of reasons why I don’t plan on reading more of her works. I get that the people misusing words are mostly teens (and I’m assuming it’s all authorial choice) but the “convenience” of all the wrong words being real words with different meanings and only slightly different spellings pisses me off.
Paging Gaudere! Paging Gaudere!
sigh :o
Well to be fair I didn’t use spell check and I did proofread. I just did so…poorly.
…he/she knows a word like ‘layman’s’ and can’t spell it properly? 
I love how the student spells ‘write’ correctly–and then incorrectly, five words later. And by love, I mean weep softly in the corner as another shred of faith in humanity vanishes.
If I were a teacher…(oh, wait, I am…)
On the first day of class I’d discuss how to email the teacher.
And I’d show an example of the right way.
And the wrong way.
Won’t solve all of life’s problems, but it will help. It’s easy to make fun of students, but, hey, like I tell my colleagues: this job would be easy if we replaced them all with responsible adults.
I recently read a nasty blog comment posted by a troll that featured the phrase “…you have a liberal point of you…” mixed with some other unpleasant garbage. It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what was meant, and then I laughed.
This thread reminded me of that comment, and I laughed again.
O désespoir! O cursèd earth! Lo and you must heretofore go forth and read the accursèd text. Forthwith then write an essay of grave concern, expounding on why the author’s intent was to construct a dirge unto his best friend. For the rare and radiant friend who doth with his death bury not just the writer’s strife , but also his soul!
And ye shall call it “The Body: A (sad) exposition on why Stephen King’s story was vaguely sad, but the movie version (Stand By Me) wasn’t really all that sad.”
For the win!
I live not terribly far from Amish country and a well-known store that sells non-electric goods.
One of our English faculty members still laughs about a student who used the phrase “Lehman’s terms” in a paper.
It’s funny how people spell things wrong when it’s something they’ve only ever heard spoken aloud, isn’t it? Of course there’s a ‘t’ at the end of it! They’ve never heard it in any context other than laymen’sterms. I can see how you would get the T sound in the wrong place if you’ve never seen it written or given any thought to what you’re hearing or saying.
Runs…: Good idea. It might actually work with a few students, but mostly the ones who are incompetent will stay that way. I don’t know if you’ve ever read the Rate Your Students blogspot, but some professors posting there have said that they will not respond to a student’s email if it is very poorly written, unedited, filled with IM abbreviations, and so on. That’s as much as they will say in their replies–if they reply, that is.
What gets me is that said colleague’s campus (which is also mine) has finals beginning in the second week of December. And this student doesn’t have a clue about how to write a certain paper this late in the term? It is to weep.
You put an extra space between “strife” and the comma.
Boy, are you dumb!
but it shows a basic lack of understanding of what the term really means, like when someone says they’re at so-and-so’s “beck and call” as opposed to beckon call, or a hundred other examples I know.
Whoosh?
apparently 
I’m at the end of my workday, though, so I claim broken-brain syndrom! PopeJewish needs a nap…
But, but, it signifies a significant pause in the writer’s strife! (BTW, I totally wanted to write “stryfe,” as in the character in the Marvel universe.)
I figured you’d know about the extra-long comma-space pause, being named commasense and all. Shows what you know 
I submit the following series of e-mail from a freshman student (local small-town white middle class person apparently) who I knew nothing of before the first e-mail-- no idea if the student ever attended class:
[after missing the first TWO exams completely]
“is there a way that i can take my mid term on monday for this class? with u during your office hours??? becauise i would rather d o it wiht u by my self then in class because i have an iep an i htink im going to need some help…”
(of course I had never heard a word from disabilities services about this student, and have no idea about this iep (new term to me for alternative testing options)). Followup:
"i have papers for my iep… i will get them to you… ummm yeah i was working [seasonal event around here] then i got sick really bad where i lost my voice… then my uncle’s brother die and we had a veiwin an stuff to go to… then my other uncle on my dads side ended up really sick an in the hospital… im so srry bout everything but i want to make all of this stuff i misses up… if that is ok with you… "
and
"ok that will be good but i have a note taker that takes my notes so that is ok… and i dont have a doctor note because i dont go to the doctor in less i have to… it onl y i was sick because my uncle had die an my other uncle was in the hospital… very very sick deadly sick so yeah… but i will come an see you… thank you "
Then after a number of e-mails from me trying to schedule something, trying to figure what’s up with the student, repeatedly going “Hello? Can we schedule this thing, really?” two weeks later:
"i have to take a medical leave i was in a very bad car accident friday night "
Meh. Student does seem to have withdrawn in any case. I think school was not in the works for this term in that one’s life.