College in a Nutskull

Book Review

Reviewed by

Troy Simpson

Introduction

College in a Nutskull: A Crash Ed Course in Higher Education is a book of student mistakes collected from colleges across America and other countries. The student mistakes have been collected and compiled by history Professor Anders Henriksson.

According to the book's blurb on Amazon, College in a Nutskull is:

"stuff that just cannot be made up — bloopers and blunders and desperate attempts to bluff the right answer, woven together to give a hilarious, unintentionally brilliant report on the state of American higher education."

I bought College in a Nutskull in the hopes that it would be a truly funny blooper book. Having now read College in a Nutskull, I am a little disappointed. Here are my reasons.

What Makes Bloopers Funny?

Funny bloopers have at least five elements. But most of the bloopers in College in a Nutskull have only one or two of these elements.

1. Bloopers Must Be Genuine

To be funny, a blooper must be genuine. Someone, somewhere, at some time must have actually said or written the blooper; the blooper must not have been invented by the person who has compiled or reported the blooper.

To prove the blooper's genuineness, it helps if the compiler cites their sources or at least mentions sources in some way.

For example, Cecil Hunt in the foreword to Howlers (1928) says the howlers that he collected, or at least "the most delightful ones", were sent to him by:

"teachers who have vouched for their accuracy and have quoted the school, form, and date of examination" (p 5).

Like Cecil Hunt's Howlers, College in a Nutskull passes the test of genuineness well.

Rarely for a blooper book, the compiler discusses his sources, including countries of origin (which include not only America but also Australia, Canada, and New Zealand: p vi), institutions (large and small, public and private: p vi), and the broad kinds of sources (such as essays and examination papers, course evaluation forms, and emails: p vi).

Henriksson even lists specific institutions and contributors (pp 133-4) and cites a URL of New Zealand student howlers (p 134).

A history professor like Anders Henriksson would know all about the importance of sources.  Henricksson's credentials as a history professor and his naming of sources reassure the reader that the bloopers in College in a Nutskull are all real.

2. Funny Bloopers Have A Double Meaning

To be funny, a blooper must have a double meaning. The reigning clown prince of bloopers is Richard Lederer, who compiled the best-selling Anguished English series. According to Lederer, bloopers require:

"the coexistence of two meanings — one intended and one unwitting — that are both held in the reader's mind" (Richard Lederer, More Anguished English: an Expose of Embarrassing Excruciating, and Egregious Errors in English (1993), p 193).

For example, consider the following classic student blooper from Colin McIlwaine's Selection of Schoolboy Howlers (1928):

"In Christianity a man can only have one wife. This is called monotony."

In this blooper, the intended meaning is "monogamy". The unintended meaning is "monotony".

Few of the bloopers in College in a Nutskull contain the double meaning required for truly funny bloopers.

For example, compare Cecil Hunt's classic blooper about monogamy-monotony quoted above with these examples from College in a Nutskull:

"God gave Moses the Bill of Rights" (p 2).

"Leo XIII became the first non-Catholic to head the Vatican" (p 7).

"The Prime Minister heads the Church of England" (p 94).

"American women won the right to vote in 1973" (p 131).

Unless I am missing something, these examples — and these examples are typical of College in a Nutskull — contain no double meaning. These examples might count as silly mistakes, but, to me, they do not count as bloopers.

3. A Blooper's Double Meaning Must Be Unintentional

As I have written in the foreword to Funny English Errors and Insights (2010, p vi), a lot of a blooper's humour comes from its being unintentional. A student who writes something deliberately to be funny makes a joke, not a blooper.

Most of the specimens in College in a Nutskull pass the "unintentional test". But some of the mistakes read more like the responses of a Smart Alec or a class clown than a response of a genuinely confused student. Here is an example:

"Alienation is the nation someone else comes from" (p 22).

4. The Double Meaning Reveals Some Truth Or Insight

Funny bloopers contain some element of truth or insight. Take these classic examples:

"There were no Christians among the early Gauls, they were mostly lawyers" (Alexander Abingdon, More Boners).

"Henry VIII by his own efforts increased the population of England by 40,000" (Alexander Abingdon, Still More Boners).

"The Pilgrims came to this country to worship as they saw fit and to see that everybody did the same" (Alexander Abingdon, Prize Boners).

These bloopers reveal or highlight something of the nature of lawyers, Henry VIII (who had six wives), and pilgrims or missionaries.

By contrast, few of the bloopers in College in a Nutskull reveal anything more than the student's stupidity. The following examples from College in a Nutskull are typical:

"Acrophobia is fear of acrobats" (p 21).

"An acronym refers to spiders" (p 54).

"Common law is for the common people" (p 92).

These examples might all count as mistakes. But, to adapt a phrase from Richard Lederer in More Anguished English (1993, p 194), "so what?"

5. Funny Bloopers Have Innocence

Funny bloopers have an innocence about them.

A blooper from an innocently muddled 7-year-old primary school student is funnier than the same blooper from a 17-year-old college student who should have known better.

Since College in a Nutskull is a book of college bloopers, the specimens lack the innocence of the bloopers in other compilations, such as the Howlers books, the Boners books, and Lederer's Anguished English series.

Good Points To College in a Nutskull

On the positive side, College in a Nutskull looks great. It has a funky, creative design. The book has spiral binding, to make it look like a college notebook. There are clever doodles throughout the book and handwritten notes appear in the margins. College in a Nutskull even comes with a few dozen photographs.

Another positive aspect of College in a Nutskull is that all the bloopers are new. I have not read any of the bloopers in College in a Nutskull before, or at least not in precisely the same form as they appear in College in a Nutskull.

However, the underlying idea in some of the bloopers in College in a Nutskull will be familiar to bloopers connoisseurs. For example, College in a Nutskull includes this blooper:

"Greek architecture could be Doric or Ironic" (p 34).

Similar, and funnier, examples of the same confusion between "Ironic" and "Ionic" have appeared in several other collections. For example, Bigger and Better Boners published this blooper in 1952:

"The Temple of Zeus was built of pillars that bulge out. This is called the Ironic style."

6. Conclusion

The good points of College in a Nutskull do not make-up for the book's main flaw: most of the book's collection of so-called "bloopers" is not funny. College in a Nutskull is more a book of dumb mistakes than a book of genuinely humorous bloopers.