By shit.jpg - 25/08/2015 19:22 - United States - Waban

Today, a fifth grader gave me a note from his "father" excusing him from PE. It was riddled with spelling errors and shockingly poor grammar, so I rejected it as a blatant fake. Several hours later, I was informed by his very angry father that it wasn't actually fake. FML
I agree, your life sucks 28 801
You deserved it 4 041

Same thing different taste

Top comments

@1, says the person who doesn't know the difference between of and 've.

"Should of"? Jesus. That's like nails scraping across the English class' chalkboard.

Comments

JMichael 25

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"Should of"? Jesus. That's like nails scraping across the English class' chalkboard.

Comment moderated for rule-breaking.

Show it anyway

#10 an apostrophe can be used in place of a plural S in a case where the word already ends with an S

It's actually classes not class' or class's

ExtremeEncounter 32

#19 Wrong, "classes" would be referring to multiple classrooms. They are trying to show possession.

#11. The only time you use an apostrophe to make a plural is with letters and numbers. A's, B's, C's. 1's, 2's, 3's. Etc. Although, if you are trying to say an age (E.G. Saying someone is in their thirties) you don't use an apostrophe. E.G. The man is in his 30s. #5 is using an apostrophe to mark the genitive case. You use an 's at the end of a word that does not have an s already. E.G. The car's yellow door. You use an apostrophe on its own in cases where there is an s already. E.G. James' book.

Lol this is turning into an English class

#20 Even if it's a possession it would still be classes but this may just be my British English grammar talking as we were taught the plural for class is classes.

Haha, I knew someone would try to "correct" that. Try looking stuff up before making yourselves look like idiots, #10, #19 and #26. Or take a remedial English class.

Oops I must've been distracted while writing that.. I just reread it over and realized my mistake immediately. What I was trying to say was pretty much what #21 said haha oh well

JMichael 25

I have realized only too late my mistake, and have paid dearly for it. Ironic indeed.

Holy shit, wtf is happening here? Whom gives a ****?

26, But the sentence doesn't involve using a plural... They are talking about a single english class that has a chalkboard.

8313girl 28

Ok (should have) and (class') sound better huh students. I hate when people say supposably too. Its supposedly. Ok I'm outta here.

The grammatically incorrect responses to this comment hurt my eyes.

Who gives a **** to whom. If you're not sure whether it's "who" (subjective pronoun) or "whom" (objective pronoun), replace who/whom in your sentence with she/her, and see which one fits.

so in conclusion... did we agree that #5 should've said classes'? Or class'?

There goes 5 minutes of my life that I'll never get back.

Fake or not you could have called and checked..

What kind of teacher wants to bother parents for every single note that comes there way? If it looked obviously fake to the teacher then that should be good enough or the parent should feel like doing better next time. Not that hard to properly write an excuse note (grammatically especially).

*their way, since we're on the subject of grammar.

JustinJK 21

Some people just aren't very good at spelling/Grammar lol. My father is very educated and intelligent. He's a businessman, but English isn't his strong point. He speaks well and has a great vocabulary, but writing is his forte lol.

JustinJK 21

@1, says the person who doesn't know the difference between of and 've.

Like in Drake and Josh "Drake has twisted his liver. He cannot go to school or bathe. Sincerely, The doctor."

You judged too quickly, OP. Next time, at least try to verify with the parents before rejecting something based on spelling errors and what not. English is not everyone's first language.

As a teacher, I can promise you that kids take chances the whole damn time. If you had to verify each and every little note, you would have no time left to teach. You start to develop what I privately like to refer to as a "bullshit radar". Sometimes it's a bit off, as in OP's case. But mostly it's not. You learn all the tricks. I would in all honesty have made the same mistake as OP (depending on the handwriting, of course. That's often a dead giveaway).

Amen, my Aunts an elementary school teacher and if I had to count all the times she's told me about situations like that with the kids or heck even the times the parents just are illiterate we'd be here until after Christmas.

That is completely true but honestly if a kid comes with a note looking that bad 99% of the time, it is probably the kid. But like you said, its good to confirm anyways.

Something similar almost happened to me when I was about 14 because my mum had to write me a note really quickly before she left for work, and the only pen she could find had bright orange ink. She still wrote the note, but when she got to work she called the school office to apologise for the day-glo note, and explained the situation so they could tell my teacher that the note was legit. If you can't write a note that actually looks like it was written by an adult, a phone call only takes a few minutes.

rdenkewicz 11

How do you expect OP to verify the information quickly enough? Didn't realize gym teachers put kid's parents on speed dial.

My teacher's if they thought a note was a fake always sent it to the office so the secretaries could call and verify it's contents. Plus, with PE you have to be careful in case the child is injured.

ViviMage 38

You know in IL you needed PE to graduate high school. It's a state mandate. Unless you were paralyzed or wheelchair bound/out for a temporary medical reason you could do a lighter version of PE, or if shorts and tees where against your religion you did the lighter version of PE. But they made you if you could at all because the state required it! I would have called the father to confirm it. I work with adults that sound like they need to go back to grammar school, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was one.

DeltaDragonxx 20

It's not to completely get out of it, it is, as you said, a day or so due to asthma so similar.

Where I went to high school, a PE class was required unless you were in marching band you could be.. shit I'm drawing a blank on the word I'm looking for. exempt? you get what I'm saying.

dafluckster 6

Even adults these days are idiots - you can't expect much better than what you saw.

Be glad the father didn't give you some physical education.