Onslaught

One day, A colleague did not come and I received a 'sit in' slip to look after her class. Curious about what her students had been doing in her lessons, I asked a top student if I could read his exercise book. He proudly showed me his book and I read it. While flipping the pages, a sentence caught my eye:'Onslaught of the Library Club, I would like to give a speech on the advantages of reading.' At that very instant, I did not know what it meant, was the student under the attack of the Library Club? I read the same sentence repeatedly and it finally sank into my mind that the student was trying to say 'on behalf of the library club'. How atrocious! the whole meaning was distorted. There was one more thing that made me more shocked. the student received a double tick, a merit mark for the use of that word. On the whole, he obtained a 29/30, an almost perfect score, but aside from the glaring error, there were other errors too! The likes of ' reading books benefit us and it is more better reading books in our free time'. why did  the teacher award him such a score?

I returned the book to the boy and asked a girl to show me her exercise book. When I went through the same speech on the advantages of reading, I was shocked to see the same glaring error - onslaught of the Library Club. Then I asked a few more students to show me their books, and I saw the same thing too.

"Why did you use 'onslaught'?" I asked the students.
"Our teacher taught us to use it," answered the students.

I tried my best not to look incredulous, and when some students asked me why I asked them the question, I shook my head and said nothig.

Come on, onslaught! it's Poles apart from on behalf. how outrageous!

Comments

suituapui said…
Many like that around, a dime a dozen.
April 12, 2015 at 10:49 PM
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