May 2021 Blooper of the Month #1
“[the attackers themselves] confessed that they were on this crime scree – I should say, crime spree, because they were responding to Donald Trump.” (Ari Melber, “The Beat with Ari Melber”, MSNBC, February 11, 2021)
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A scree is, of course, usually a heap of pebbles or small stone rubble. I suppose it could be involved in a crime - if, for instance, it decided to make someone slip and fall, and get injured. But in that case, I think I'd like for the attackers to be ON the scree, and be the ones that slip and get injured.
May 2021 Blooper of the Month #2
“They helped me so one day I could talk English like a mashed potato.” (Line in a short classroom essay, by one of my husband’s junior high level ESL students, in the West Contra Costa Unified School District. Around year 2000.)
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Yes, this isn’t exactly a blooper in the traditional sense. But my husband only ever saved two really funny writing mistakes (out of 25 years of teaching ESL), so it’s hardly worth trying to create a separate category for the two.
May 2021 Blooper of the Month #3
“I’m careful when I go to not drown and I haven’t drown since that time.”
This is the other writing mistake my husband saved from his junior high ESL teaching days.
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