Science and Maths Howlers

Hunt's Howlers—Science and Maths Howlers

This page contains selected science and maths howlers from Cecil Hunt's classic book of Howlers, published in 1928. The selected extracts, edited and rearranged, are reproduced for readers in countries where Howlers is in the public domain, which includes Australia. For other countries, please check your local copyright laws.

Animals

A hostage is a big bird with four legs and a long neck.

An elephant is a square animal with a tail in front and behind.

To keep milk from turning sour you should keep it in the cow.

Moths eat least of all because they eat holes.

The only pouched animal in America is the apostle.

The cow has a pulse as well as anyone else, but you can't feel it in its wrist.

There are many eligible fish in the North Sea.

It is pain to a cat to tread on its paw, and it swears, but in a different manner to what we do.

A sheep is mutton covered with wool.

Tadpoles eat one another and become frogs.

A sure-footed animal is an animal that when it kicks it does not miss.

The Zodiac is the Zoo of the sky where lions, goats, virgins and other animals go after they are dead.

Biology and Health

Food is nourished in the stomach. It is digested by the lungs … The food then passes from your windpipe to your pores, and passes off your body by evaporation.

Germs are sort of small insecks that swim in you when they can get in. Some are called measles but you can't see them.

Anaemia is not having enough blood, but you have enough to bleed as much as anyone else if you cut your finger.

We should not eat too much bone-making food, because if we do we shall have too many bones, and that would make us look funny.

The best food for babies is oxygen, hydrogen and a little carbon.

There are four symptoms of a cold, two I forget and the other two are well-known.

A drug is any wholesome vegetable good for taking once in a way, but not for regular food.

An injection is a shout or scream raised by a person too surprised or frightened to make a sentence with his thoughts.

Letter to headmaster: I can't get to school as mother is in bed with ten disciples [appendicitis].

Artificial respiration is what you make a person alive with when they are only just dead.

A bloodvessel is a man's lifeboat.

To germinate is to become a naturalised German.

Chemistry

Water is composed of two gins, Oxygin and Hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin, Hydrogin is gin and water.

An oxygen has eight sides.

Nitric acid burns yellow holes in your clothes.

If the air contains more than 100% carbolic acid it is very injurious to health.

To fill an apparatus with acidulated water, turn on the taps and acidulate.

Mathematics and measurement

A centimetre is an insect with a hundred legs.

A litre is a nest of young puppies.

An obtuse-angled triangle is a solid three-sided figure with thick sides.

A polygon is a man with several wives.

A trapezium is the thing in the gymnasium.

A triangle with equal sides is called equatorial.

Geometry teaches us to bisex angels.

Isosceles triangles are used on maps to join up places with the same weather.

A line is a length of breath.

Gravity was discovered by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees.

The process of turning steam into water again is called Conversation.

A surface is the very top you cannot see.

Atomic weights are used for weighing atoms.

A magnet is a thing you find in a bad apple.

Inertia is that which tends to have a uniform motion in a state of rest.

The first law of friction is that when two surfaces are at rest it is more difficult to start them in motion than when they are already in motion.

Miscellaneous

Our food was eaten and our water was drunken.

Question: What is a coroner? Answer: A man whose duty is to decide whether a person died a natural or a fatal death. Another answer: He crowns the King. Another answer: He is likely one of the King's men who plays on the coronet at banquets. Another answer: They are persons who look after crowns.