Howlers

Like millions of others, I take great pleasure, every year, in reading GCSE and A-Level howlers. My all-time favorites are : “Condors have such sharp vision that they can read a newspaper from a distance of 200 yards.” Closely followed by : “My aunt is prawn to catching many diseases.”

I also have a soft spot for the student who had to translate incendie de forêt, and came up with indecencies in the forest.

Like Proust’s petite madeleine, it triggered in me a whole range of sweet, poetic and nostalgic memories of the time (I was ten, and she was eleven) when the girl next door and I did indeed teach one another some delightful facts of life… in a forest.

This is my poor attempt at translating Paul Verlaine :

How fragrant are the flowers of Spring,

and how charming the sound of her whisper

when for the first time ever, she said “yes” !