The winner was the entry provided by John Milliken, lecturer in education at the University of Ulster. His student claimed that ‘the [hole in the] ozone layer was caused by a*******s. Dr Milliken said: ‘He probably meant aerosols, but then…maybe not.’ – I think he makes a good point.
Mr Milliken’s second student blooper was a student’s declaration in a paper on vehicle emissions that ‘in future all cars (will) be fitted with Catholic converters’. – The pope will be pleased.
Verity Brack, information technology programme director at the University of Sheffield, entered the statement that Google was ‘one of the two main suppositories of data in the world’. – Sounds painful.
Josephine Kelly, a lecturer in business and government at Aston University, was intrigued to read that the Coalition government had a ‘toff stance on tax avoidance’. She noted that the student actually meant ‘tuff’ (tough). – Definitely!
In a paper marked by Andrew Rudd, lecturer in English literature at the University of Exeter a rather new take on London’s thriving social scene in the 18th century came out in a paper on the creation of the Spectator publication in 1711. “Within these coffeehouses, men from all different parts of the world could interfere with each other”, wrote his student. – Could be true.
Alix Green, lecturer in history at the University of Hertfordshire, was baffled to hear that “Hitler’s role in the Second World War is often overlooked”. – Er by whom?
Source: Times Higher Education
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