From the mouths of babes…
February 17th, 2007 by screenwriterguy
 This 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?” |
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Feb 18th 2007 at 3:28 pm
bwahahaha - you HAVE to use that line in your ‘earl’ spec! that is friggin’ classic! thank god for the minds of children!
Feb 19th 2007 at 4:51 pm
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!”