They Didn't Study

[hathair_bláth]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/5107/They-didnt-study

Not even a 'C' for creativity!

[fyffer]

In the words of one of the responders below the pictures,
One word: ROFL

[Scott McCallister]

"Use calculus to find the identity of Batman"

what a scream!

[Cynth]

A proton approaches a long line of positive charge so that with it's initial trajectory it would intersect the line....
Hint: find the field and potential that affect the proton.

Hint: Change "it's" to "its".
Can I get partial credit for that?

I thought the response to the command to "Find x." in the geometry problem was really elegant---"Here it is". There's a cool customer for ya.

[Doug_Tipple]

A proton approaches a long line of positive charge so that with it's initial trajectory it would intersect the line....
Hint: find the field and potential that affect the proton.

Hint: Change "it's" to "its".
Can I get partial credit for that?

There is a bronze plaque in the lobby of the administration building at my alma mater that has the same gramatical error, confusing "it's" and "its". You have to admit, its one gramatical rule that is easy to make if you aren't paying attention.

As an ex-high school math teacher, the other examples bring back both happy and bad memories. One bad memory comes with the realization that you have a number of people in your class that don't have the slightest idea what you have been talking about in class.

[chas]

A proton approaches a long line of positive charge so that with it's initial trajectory it would intersect the line....
Hint: find the field and potential that affect the proton.

Hint: Change "it's" to "its".
Can I get partial credit for that?

There is a bronze plaque in the lobby of the administration building at my alma mater that has the same gramatical error, confusing "it's" and "its".

There's a sign at the entrance of the engineering school at my alma mater that reads: Perspective students report to room 114 . It had been there for years.

[djm]

Hint: Change "it's" to "its".
Can I get partial credit for that?

Nope, sorry, but that is incorrect. As I understand it, due to confusion between possesive form "it's" and the contraction form of "it is", the convention is to leave out the apostrophe for the contraction of "it is" but to keep the apostrophe for the possesive "it's". In this case, if we substituted "it's initial trajectory" with "it is initial trajectory" we can see that doesn't make sense, so it must be the possesive form that is intended. Therefore "it's" is used correctly.

Here is a more correct usage of the contraction form:

Its

djm

[Nanohedron]

Hint: Change "it's" to "its".
Can I get partial credit for that?

Nope, sorry, but that is incorrect. As I understand it, due to confusion between possesive form "it's" and the contraction form of "it is", the convention is to leave out the apostrophe for the contraction of "it is" but to keep the apostrophe for the possesive "it's". In this case, if we substituted "it's initial trajectory" with "it is initial trajectory" we can see that doesn't make sense, so it must be the possesive form that is intended. Therefore "it's" is used correctly.

Here is a more correct usage of the contraction form:

Its

djm

Deej, could you be any more convolutedly wrong? Intent may make meaning clear, but it doesn't defray a mistake. "Its" = possessive. "It's" = "it is". That's it. "It's" is never the possessive. Properly, anyway. It's one of those exceptions that finds its way into English orthography (there's a case example for you).

[djm]

could you be any more convolutedly wrong?

Just watch me!

You're right. Doug T is right. I am wrong.

Mea culpa.

djm

(at least I've owned Cold Blow and the Rainy Night since it was first issued)

[Nanohedron]

could you be any more convolutedly wrong?

Just watch me!

You're right. Doug T is right. I am wrong.

Mea culpa.

djm

(at least I've owned Cold Blow and the Rainy Night since it was first issued)

[Cynth]

A proton approaches a long line of positive charge so that with it's initial trajectory it would intersect the line....
Hint: find the field and potential that affect the proton.

Hint: Change "it's" to "its".
Can I get partial credit for that?

There is a bronze plaque in the lobby of the administration building at my alma mater that has the same gramatical error, confusing "it's" and "its". You have to admit, its one gramatical rule that is easy to make if you aren't paying attention.

I do admit it, Doug, and furthermore, I admit that I'm sure the professor could easily fix his or her mistake and I could never, ever comprehend anything about that proton, even with the hint.

[Doug_Tipple]

Hint: Change "it's" to "its".
Can I get partial credit for that?

There is a bronze plaque in the lobby of the administration building at my alma mater that has the same gramatical error, confusing "it's" and "its". You have to admit, its one gramatical rule that is easy to make if you aren't paying attention.

I do admit it, Doug, and furthermore, I admit that I'm sure the professor could easily fix his or her mistake and I could never, ever comprehend anything about that proton, even with the hint.

I have been expecting someone to see and report on the error in my second sentence above, but evidently its not easy to spot unless its something that you are looking for.

[Cynth]

There is a bronze plaque in the lobby of the administration building at my alma mater that has the same gramatical error, confusing "it's" and "its". You have to admit, its one gramatical rule that is easy to make if you aren't paying attention.

I do admit it, Doug, and furthermore, I admit that I'm sure the professor could easily fix his or her mistake and I could never, ever comprehend anything about that proton, even with the hint.

I have been expecting someone to see and report on the error in my second sentence above, but evidently its not easy to spot unless its something that you are looking for.

Aw dang, I definitely saw the mistake but I figured that you were dangling bait in front of us and I wasn't going to bite . As you can see, I have now marked all (I hope) of your errors!

[Nanohedron]

There is a bronze plaque in the lobby of the administration building at my alma mater that has the same gramatical error, confusing "it's" and "its". You have to admit, its one gramatical rule that is easy to make if you aren't paying attention.

I do admit it, Doug, and furthermore, I admit that I'm sure the professor could easily fix his or her mistake and I could never, ever comprehend anything about that proton, even with the hint.

I have been expecting someone to see and report on the error in my second sentence above, but evidently its not easy to spot unless its something that you are looking for.

Exactly. One possibility is that one is finally immune to it and just doesn't care anymore so far as others are concerned. I'll submit for discussion that, after all, the success of others doesn't depend on a spelling maven's gimlet eye unless there's a schooling grade involved. First, spelling mistakes don't usually confuse the message (although there've been some spectacular exceptions to the confusion thing, I've found); we see this time and again, and so glossing over what has by experience turned into minutiae is par for the course. Second, pay me. Then I'll care to ferret it out. The rest is spite.

And Doug, you did it again, by the way.

Oh. Crap. Cynth beat me to it, and in color, no less.

*spite spite spite spite*

[kkrell]

Don't forget, Doug spelled "grammatical" incorrectly (in the second sentence).

Kevin Krell