SCHOOLBOY "HOWLERS"

Waipa Post, Volume 38, Issue 2271, 21 February 1929, Page 3

SCHOOLBOY "HOWLERS"

There is always a demand for good schoolboy "howlers," a fact that may have prompted Mr Colin Mcllwaine to compile the collection entitled "A Selection of Schoolboy Howlers." Some of Mr Mcllwaine's examples appear to be the expression of inspired genius rather than of youthful muddle headedness. "There are few well known Scotch poets alive, but none of them write free verse," is too good to be true. "A Papal Bull was really a cow that was kept at the Vatican to supply milk for the Pope's children," is another rare gem. Appetite rather than an intensive study of geographymust have inspired "The highest peak in the Alps is Blanc Mange." The origin of "The zebra is a sort of cream coloured donkey with black stripes from which they make grate polish" will be apparent to many readers of advertisements.

Environment may account for some of the "howlers." 'Genius is an infinite capacity for picking brains" should have been written by the son of an American millionaire; "Guano is the product of manurous birds" could only have been evolved by pure reasoning. How little Bolshevik propaganda has troubled the placid streams of some minds is 'disclosed by "A Seviet is a cloth used by waiters in hotels." When the boys touch upon questions of health they are at their best. Not a man in the medical profession could find fault with "Doctors say fatal diseases are the worst," though some might question the statement that "The Menai Strait is spanned by a tubercular bridge." The boy who guessed that "Epics describe the brave deeds of men called epicures" deserved better luck than the boy who defined a grass widow as the "wife of a dead vegetarian." Some day the boy who wrote "Many people say free trade is better than detection" will become a political economist. "A politician is a man who stands because he wants to sit, and is expected to lie," reads more like the expression of a cynic than of a schoolboy. "The letters M.D. signify 'mentally deficient' " will hardly pass

muster as the product of innocence. A few translations are given of which undoubtedly, the gem is "Post equitem sedet atra Cura —after riding, the dark lady sits down with care."