GRAMMAR SCHOOL STUDENTS ON MUSIC:
- The principal singer of nineteenth century opera was called pre-Madonna.
- Sherbet composed the Unfinished Symphony.
- All female parts were sung by castrati. We don’t know exactly what they sounded like because there are no known descendants.
- Young scholars have expressed their rapture for the Bronze Lullaby, the Taco Bell Cannon, Beethoven’s Erotica, Tchaikovsky Cracknutter Suite, and Gershwin’s Rap City in Blue.
- Music sung by two people at the same time is called a duel; if they sing without music it is called Acapulco.
- A virtuoso is a musician with real high morals.
- Diatonic is a low calorie Schweppes.
- Probably the most marvellous fugue was the one between the Hatfields and the McCoys.
- A harp is a nude piano.
- The correct way to find the key to a piece of music is to use a pitchfork.
- I know what a sextet is but I’d rather not say.
- Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practised on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic.
THESE ARE ACTUAL EXCERPTS FROM STUDENT SCIENCE EXAM PAPERS:
- Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the organ of the species.
- Benjamin Franklin produced electricity by rubbing cats backwards.
- The theory of evolution was greatly objected to because it made man think.
- Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes and caterpillars.
- The process of turning steam back into water again is called conversation.
- The Earth makes one resolution every 24 hours.
- To collect fumes of sulfur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube.
- Algebraical symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about.
- The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects.
- Dew is formed on leaves when the sun shines down on them and makes them perspire.
- A super-saturated solution is one that holds more than it can hold.
- A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene triangle.
- When you haven’t got enough iodine in your blood you get a glacier.
- For fractures: to see if the limb is broken, wiggle it gently back and forth.
- To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the nose.
- For asphyxiation: apply artificial respiration until the patient is dead.
- When you smell an odorless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide.
Miscellaneous:
“When you’re in a committed relationship and spend all of your time with one person, that’s called being magnanimous.”
