“Howlers” Are an Annual Exam Harvest

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 240, 30 December 1927, Page 7

“Howlers” Are an Annual Exam Harvest

Scholars Errors Cont r:ue to Yield Amusement

SOME CLASSIC MISTAKES There is always a harvest of "howlers” during the school examination season. A writer in the Melbourne "Argus” has collected an interesting series from various sources. The most amusing “howlers” perpetrated by young scholars are due to misapprehension of oral instruction, but many are also the result of dullness or exuberant imagination on the part of the pupils. Some “howlers” are the result of traps set by examiners; but while traps for the unwary have their uses, they are not always fair to the scholars. It is the main function of an examination paper to ascertain what the scholars know, not what they do not know. i

Adams * who was Professor of Education at the University of London for more than 20 years, quotes some amusing “howlers” in his recent bo ° k ’ Errors in School: Their causes and Treatment,” but a more varied crop is to be found in the English school magazines each year, when they discuss the results of the examinations. One howler” quoted by Sir John Adams is the explanation of the term *j£ass widow” as the wife of a dead Ar ? other boy wrote that Margaret of Anjou was “very fat.” this conviction being based on the state or Hen?' 01 ? istor y that she was one of Henry's stoutest supporters.” Wrong Definitions The definition of words unfamiliar to the average schoolboys’ vocabulary invariably produces some excellent “howlers.” Shibboleth has been defined as “ a garment worn by the Jews,” and another pupil, asked to make up a sentence with this word in it, wrote, “He played quite well on the shibboleth.” A similar request with regard to the word magnaminously produced the sentence, “He was magnanimously elected.” Idiosyncrasy was defined as “the abstract qaulity of an idiot,” and integrity as “lowness of character,” and by another bo . y as “force,” this meaning being illustrated by the sentence, “He hung on to the bear with great integrity.” The boy who described an aristocrat as “a man who performs :F, , . on the stage” was obviously thinking of an acrobat. The statement that volcanoes throw out saliva” is w^,f a , S , lly . explicable; but the boy wlio wrote that newspapers are useful for reporting calamities, such as deaths marriages, etc.,” might be credited with a ® ardonlc sense of humour. „ boy who - Ascribed the Equator , a menagerie lion (an imaginary ,r u i> n i n e round the centre of the ar *h had a vivid imagination but defi I JTi hat . defectiv e hearing. The savs ‘Hi? mi” e f at ,°. r . as " a cha P who e?ed instead' may be considr cKr: b °*

On literary subjects pupils often display daring views, which are not entirely based on error. “Homer was not written by Homer, but by another man of the same name,” wrote one confident pupil, who did not clearly understand his teacher’s statement that Homer may not have been an individual, but a mythical figure, typical of the wandering bard. “Bacon was The man who thought he wrote Shakespeare,” said another pupil. Another declared that “Milton was a great poet who wrote ‘Paradise Lost’; then his wife died, . and he wrote ‘Paradise Regained.’ ” Creditable Collection The “University Correspondent,” as the result of a competition among teachers and examiners for the best samples of schoolboy “howlers,” got together a very creditable collection, from which the following are taken: Evolution is what Darwin did. Revolution is a form of government abroad Devolution is something to do with Satan. Cereals are films shown at the pictures, and which last fifteen weeks. The Court of Chancery is so-called because it takes care of property when there is no chance of the owner turning up. A limited monarch is a government by a monarch who, in case of bankruptcy, would not be entirely responsible for the National Debt. You have the same thing in private life, with a limited liability company. A cuckoo is a bird which lays other birds’ eggs in its own nest, and viva voce. Queen Elizabeth was called the Virgil Queen because she knew Latin. Gravity is that which if there were none, we should all fly away. History Amended History is a fruitful field for “howlers.” “Henry VII. passed a law that no one might have a liver,” wrote a boy, who would have been right if he had added the letter “y” to the final word. The following is an English schoolboy’s essay on a King, who, on account of his obesity and luxuriousness, appeals to the youthful imagination. “King Henry VIII. was the greatest widower that ever lived. He was born at Anno Domino in the year 1066. He had 510 wives, besides children. The first was beheaded and executed. The second was revoked. She never smiled again. But she said the word ‘Calais' would be found on her heart after her death. The greatest man in the reign was Lord Sir Garret Wolsey. He was sir named the Boy Bachelor. He was at the age of fifteen unmarried. Henry VIII. was succeeded on the throne by his great-grandmother, the beautiful and accomplished Mary Queen of Scots, sometimes known as the Lady of the Lake, or the Lay of the Last Minstrel.” Another young essayist described Oliver Cromwell as the man who killed his king by “repeated beheadals,” and whose last words were, “If only I had served my God as I have served my King, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs.” Poetry and Ethics Requests by examiners to translate poetic ideas into prose generally result in revealing a gulf between such ideas and schoolboy ethics. Such a request regarding the lines uttered by Macbeth:— “I dare do all that may become a man, Who dares do more is none” produced th© following interpretation: “I flatter myself I am as good and chivalrous and brave and chivalrous as any upright gentleman need be. I con-

sider that that is quite enough. If one tries to go beyond that, he is a prig, and is only striving for personal advancment. He is batting for his average, not the side.” Another interpretation of the lines was: “I can do everything that a man can do without losing his good decency. And he who dares to pass that limit is a rotter.”

But on the whole a perusal of school boj's’ howlers suggests that the examiner is often to blame as well as the pupil, and that there is some justification for the protest of the examiner’s victim who wrote at the end of his examination paper: “I apologise to the examiner for the bad way in which I have answered the paper—but at the same time I would like to say I am but an ordinary schoolboy, and not a budding author or poet as presumably he imagined when setting this paper.” Statesmen Not Immune

According to Dr. E. J. Dillon, in his book, “The Peace Conference,” the work of drawing up the Treaty at Versailles between the Allies and Germany was productive of some howlers by eminent statesmen. The representatives of some of the smaller States at the conference, whose fate was being decided by the treaty, had to give lessons in elementary geography to the “Big Four” (M. Clemenceau, Mr. Lloyd George, President Woodrow Wilson, and Signor Orlando). “I cannot understand the smaller States,” said one of the “Big Four.”

“They single out a strip of territory, and for no intelligible reason, flock round it like birds of prey. Take Silesia. The Poles are clamouring for it the Germans are still more crazy about it, but how in heaven’s name do the Armenians come to claim it? No wonder France has put her foot down. But what does France want with it?” It was pointed out to this statesman, as considerately as possible, that Silesia was the province for which the Germans and Poles were contending, whereas the Armenians wanted Cilicia in Asia Minor, where the French desired to obtain a mandate.

President AVilson, in reply to a deputation of Italians who waited on him during his attendance at the Peace Conference, is reported to have said: “I venture to promise, that if Italy will largely increase her cultivation of bananas, the people of my country will take them all.” He was under the delusion that because bananas figure so prominently in the fruit shops of American cities kept by Italians, that Italy is a centre of ban-ana-growing industry. But as the banana does not grow in Italy, the deputation might have responded by singing. “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” but unfortunately this popular song had not been born at that date. A Polish Commission was informed by an English statesman that before its request for foodstuffs to be sent to the port of Danzig on the Baltic for the relief •of starving Poles could be complied with, the consent of Italy must be obtained, because Italy had command of the Mediterranean. M. Painleve, a former Prime Minister of France, in addressing an American gathering in Paris, said, “As Hall Caine the great American poet has put it, “O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory ?” • Spoonerisms Canon W. A. Spooner, who is now in his 84th year, and for more than 20 years was warden of New College, Oxford, has become famous as the originator of a form of howler which lends itself to imitation by persons of mischievous imagination. And he has unwillingly given his name to this amusing form of mutilated language. A Spoonerism is the transposition of letters from one word to another, whereby the intended meaning of a sentence is entirely changed. It is said that Canon Spooner in reproving an undergraduate who had misspent much of his time at college, accused him of having deliberately “tasted two worms,” whereas he meant to say that the undergraduate had deliberately wasted two terms. He is credited with having become engaged to his wife as the result of a Spoonerism in carrying out the request of the young lady’s mother, to “Step into the garden, Mr. Spooner, and ask Maud to make tea.” The message lie delivered was “Miss Maud, your mother wants to know if you will kindly take me?” At the celebration of Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee he called on the undergraduates to give three cheers for 4< the queer old Dean,” instead of the dear old Queen. His reference to his wife’s shopping methods as “stealing at the doors” instead of dealing at the stores is apocryphal—probably an undergraduate’s successful effort at manufacturing a Spoonerism. The same may be said of the reference to “cattle ships and bruisers” to be seen at Portsmouth, to the description of his luggage as “two bugs and a rag” and to the request at a wedding for information whether it was “kistomary to cuss the bride.”