And meet their kids, Radius and Ulna...

Before teaching Romeo and Juliet to my students, I always preface the unit with a lesson about the life of William Shakespeare. The quiz includes the question, "William's Shakespeare's wife: _____________"

The correct answer, of course, is "Anne Hathaway." (Yes, like the actress. No, she's not that old. Yes, more than one person can have the same name. Lunch is the same time as yesterday. Stop asking questions.) One year, while grading quizzes, one student had answered "ARM Hathaway."

I looked at this every way I could. Was I misreading it? Was her handwriting bad? No, this girl had a particularly neat handwriting. It wasn't blurred. The only possible conclusion was that she thought William Shakespeare's wife was, in fact, named after the upper limb of the human body.

I marked it wrong and continued grading, coming later to a quiz turned in by her friend, who sits nearby. She had the right answer, "Anne." But her penmanship was a little sloppier... a little messy... and if you squinted and looked at it from an angle (say, the angle of someone sitting in a nearby desk), you could possibly come to the conclusion that she had written "Arm" instead of "Anne."

This brings to mind the question of what is sadder, that this student felt the need to cheat on a quiz that was, in fact, open-notes, or the fact that she saw the word "Arm" and never questioned whether or not it would be a person's actual name.