I have a bad habit of keeping very disorganized notes, a habit perpetuated by a corresponding habit of writing down interesting ideas or quotations on whatever piece of paper happens to be handy. Sometimes this results in great delight, when I accidentally discover a forgotten envelope or piece of junk mail stuck into a book, laden with many interesting words.
Today I was at my grandparents' house half-grading Legal Writing III trial briefs and half-watching Sabrina with Hepburn and Bogart. It got to the part where the baron/chef guy says "A woman happily in love, she burns the souffle. A woman unhappily in love, she forgets to turn on the oven." No. 3 and I were enjoying this and trying to think of a good time to recycle it, and to commemorate the enjoyment I took up my red pen to jot down the baron's words.
Happily for all, I realized what I was doing before I had scribbled that choice quip into the margins of a trial brief.
No. 3 and I still had a good laugh imagining what a student would think after painstakingly making out a heavily scribbled-out bit of writing (isn't that you always do to heavily scribbled-out bits of writing???) on page 6 of his brief only to discover that quote in all of its inanity.
I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be anything like what he was expecting.
1 comment:
I did my share of scribbling-out in the reading journals I had to turn in for a senior-level course. Nothing's quite so handy (or dangerous) for random thoughts as the small notebook you carry to jot down your "responses" to boring modern paperbacks.
Isn't it sad what computerized typesetting has done to the art of miscommunication? That's the only time I can recall handing in any of my handwriting, other than exams and intro musicology.
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