Thanks for visiting swg.c!

Why not subscribe?

My Watch List

Appointment Television
30 Rock
Better Off Ted
Big Love
Big Bang Theory
Californication
The Daily Show
Dexter
Entourage
Friday Night Lights
Lost
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Mad Men
The Middle
Modern Family
Rescue Me
Robot Chicken
The Office
South Park
True Blood
The Tudors

Homework TV
House
How I Met Your Mother
Saturday Night Live
     
(w/DVR fast-forward)
Two and a Half Men

Guilty Pleasures
Batman: Brave & The Bold
Clone Wars
Glee?
Legend of the Seeker

On the Bubble
Community
Cougar Town
Grey's Anatomy
The Riches
The United States of Tara
Weeds
Currently Catching Up
NewsRadio (finished s4)
Curb (on s5)

To-Do List
Malcolm in the Middle
Nip/Tuck
Sons of Anarchy

Have Definitely Seen Every Single Episode
Action
Angel
Battlestar Galactica
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Carnivale
Coupling (BBC)
Dead Like Me
Deadwood
Dollhouse
Firefly
Freaks & Geeks
The Mighty Boosh (BBC)
The Loop
My Name Is Earl
Rome
Scrubs
Sex and the City
The Shield
Slings & Arrows
The Sopranos
Anything with “Star” in the title (...unless there's dancing)
Spaced (BBC)
West Wing
Wonder Falls
Veronica Mars



SUBSCRIBE!

Add to My Yahoo! Google Reader or Homepage Subscribe with Bloglines Subscribe in NewsGator Online Add to netvibes Add to My AOL

Most Read Posts

Top Commenters

Archives

Search


My Regular Reads:

From the mouths of babes…

February 17th, 2007 by screenwriterguy

Your AnusThis week, one of the students I tutor fed me some amazing comedy. During one of our sessions, he asked me about the planet Uranus–in complete innocence and sincerity–”Why do some people call it YŎŎR-ə-nəs, and other people call it yŏŏ-RĀ-nəs?” As a general philosophy, short of breaking the where-babies-come-from story before mom and dad get the chance, I believe that if a kid asks, a teacher needs to answer. And what student-mentor relationship WOULDN’T be strengthened by more frequent use of the word “butthole?” I explained to my tutee that it was partly a more European pronunciation but also just a way that teachers avoid listening to students snicker. Naturally, he snickered.

As an interesting sidenote, a 4th-grader in a former classroom once proved to me that you cannot win for trying. His teacher had been using the YŎŎR-ə-nəs pronunciation, so as not to say Your Anus, and the boy laughed, cupped his hand to his mouth, and whispered in my ear:

“Ha! It sounds like URINE-us.”

No idea how I’ll ever fit moments like that into a script. Too much explaining is needed. However, the same student who asked me about the pronunciations gave me a joke that I’m totally going to put into my My Name Is Earl spec. In a fake debate between us, he retorted, “I am not ignorant! Wait… what does ignorant mean?”

Similar Posts:

Posted in Other Musings | 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “From the mouths of babes…”

  1. Michael commented:

    bwahahaha – you HAVE to use that line in your ‘earl’ spec! that is friggin’ classic! thank god for the minds of children!

  2. screenwriterguy commented:

    When I was a teacher, I used to try to keep a running list of great things kids would say. Sadly, there sayings are a lot like bubbles. If you try to capture them, they break. They need too much context to just turn into your next stand-up routine.

    Still, I found some definite winners.

    On why a sixth-grade boy wanted braces:
    “People can call me metalmouth, and I’ll be like one-thousandth of a percent cyborg!”

    A second-grader, puzzled by why I didn’t let her get her way:
    “But we said please lots of times!”

Leave a Reply