Category: education

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8 Nouns That Only Have a Plural Form

English, as you might have realized by now, can be a difficult language (if you’re trying to learn it, anyway). The rules are fluid, there’s always an exception, and common sense doesn’t really apply the way it does to the “other” romance languages, or even German.

In that vein, I present to you 8 nouns that only come in multiples – meaning you can’t have just one of them, because there is no singular form.

8. Jitters

Some moods or feelings, like jitters, blues, doldrums, are only available in multitudes, sadly. You’re not allowed to have a single willy (of the creeped-out variety) or one heebie-jeebie (even if you’d rather stop there).

7. Scissors

You say “give me the scissors,” not “hand me a scissor,” even though it’s a singular tool. Others are similar (pliers, tongs, tweezers) but not all – you can have one clamp, one bear trap, and one flat iron, even though they, too, are made of joined parts.

Have fun figuring that one out.

6. Shenanigans

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#doit ? #shenanigans ? #rebelcircus #lifesnotalwaysafairytale ❤

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If you’d rather have one shenanigan instead of several, well, you’re out luck. You also cannot have a heroic, or go into a hysteric. Womp-womp.

5. Glasses

Like goggles and binoculars, the word is only plural, even though a “pair of” can be singular. They’re considered a unit made of connected parts, yet only referred to in the plural form.

4. Remains

There’s a small group of words for things that are left behind – remains, leftovers – and you’re not allowed to have a single one of them.

3. Pants

You’d be hard pressed to find a word for clothing that provides separate holes for two legs that’s a singular noun – shorts, jeans, skinnies, leggings, capris, panties, etc, all follow the plural rule even though they’re a single cut of fabric.

Fun fact: We also refer to brands in the same manner, like Levis, even though it’s actually a possessive – Levi’s – not a plural.

2. Suds

This is a strange one, because most words for masses of stuff made of other, smaller stuff will be a singular noun (rice, sugar, salt), but not suds – it’s a plural noun and has plural agreement (the suds are all over the bathroom), perhaps because a single sud is…what? No one is sure.

Or perhaps just because the people who invented English like to screw with us.

1. Riches

There are a few nouns that refer to possession or ownership – furnishings, belongings, earnings, valuables – and they’re all plural. So score one for consistency, at least.

 

Interesting, right? I thought so!

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15 Teachers Recall the Most Obvious Crush a Student Ever Had

These 15 teachers had no trouble telling when these students were crushing, and though the instances range from sweet to awkward, they all have one thing in common – it definitely wasn’t a secret.

15. Points for creativity but I doubt the police would consider them a get out of jail free.

Working as a substitute teacher, i had a sixth grader hand in a poem that went: “Roses are red, violets are Blue I am single, how about you?”

She also worked her phone number into another poem she handed in.

14. I’m going to go ahead and cringe for everyone reading this.

Not a teacher, but this one girl had such a blatantly huge crush on my film studies teacher when we were 15/16 – she herself was mixed-race and would ask the poor guy if he “preferred white chocolate, dark chocolate or caaaaaramelwinkyface” safe to say that was awkward for everyone present in the room

13. There’s never a wrong time to quote Mary Poppins.

Back when I was teaching preschool. Three-year-olds don’t do subtle. He always wanted to hold my hand when we went on walks, to sit next to me at circle time, and just to look at me with puppy eyes. It was adorable, but at the same time it was a relief when he grew out of it.

Years later, I was teaching an all-boy class at a vocational high school and was lucky enough to get a bright new teacher on a Comenius exchange to co-teach the class with me. She was also quite attractive and the boys…. reacted. Since it was an English language class, I got a kick out of doing my best Mary Poppins impression: “Close your mouth, please, we are not a codfish.”

12. Is it just me, or does this sound like potentially dangerous behavior?

I teach at a local university and I’ve had a few including one who used to sketch me during class, one who tried to put his arm around me, etc. The most obvious and persistent was a student who used to follow me after class every day, show up at my office “just to talk,” and spent all of his time attempting to look down my shirt. He ended up dropping out of college halfway through the semester.

11. If that’s not a perfect history teacher response, I don’t know what is!

I’m not a teacher, but I do have a story of when I was a HS student. It was my senior year and I had a crush on this young history teacher. he would come on model un trips with us as a chaperone so he knew who I was. It was my birthday and he heard from a different teacher across the hall. He said “happy birthday” to me, and my response was “thanks, I’m 18.” I blurted it out very quickly and realized literally the second it left my mouth how inappropriate it was. His response, “well you can vote now!”

10. Now that kid has all of our hearts, let’s be honest.

I had a student who had a rough life. Mom pretty much abandoned him,and grandma was raising him by pawning him off to family on the weekends. I knew he was going to have a rough life if someone didn’t step in and let him know he mattered. He asked me one day how I would know if someone loved me. I jokingly replied that that person would bring me coffee in the morning. A few days later he came into the gym with a huge smile and a cup of gas station coffee. He walked right up and handed it to me along with a bag of creamers and sugars. He said he didn’t know how I liked my coffee so he grabbed one of each. He saved his allowance, and asked his grandma to leave for school early so he could stop by the gas station. The next year he brought me a coffee mug so I could remember him when I drank my morning coffee. That kid will always have my heart.

9. I have no idea how teachers handle social media these days.

In the days of msn, I got a chat invite from someone who had the same last name as me. I assumed it was a relation, but they didn’t say anything and so I left for a bit to eat. I came back and saw a couple more people had been added to the chat and saw they’d been talking about me. I realised they were students because they referred to me as ‘Miss –‘. They were teasing one of the others for his crush on me and he was defending my ‘massive ass’ as ‘hot’.

8. Props to that guy for keeping his private life so totally under wraps for 4 years.

I had a crush on my teacher in high school. After I graduated, I asked him out to lunch with my best friend and me. He agreed. We met up a few days later and he walked in… with his husband. That was a rough day for me.

7. Well, that was a quick turnaround, but props for logic and math abilities.

I had a kid ask me to marry him the other day. Then he proceeded to say I would be way to old for him by the time he was old enough to get married.

6. He had that followup ready to go!

I had a student ask me if I was married….yes. This was followed by, “but are you happily married?” I started teaching way too young.

Edit: Appreciate the silver and gold! I’m glad to have amused y’all with my awkward moment.

5. That’s definitely hard to hide, right guys?

When I was playing Hamlet in the school play, and the girl playing Ophelia got stage fright at the last minute, so the drama teacher had to costume up and sub in for her, on her knees in a low-cut bodice, hanging onto my leg, and screaming, “Oh, help him, you sweet heavens!”.

I got a boner in front of 500 people.

4. You might be easily forgotten, but you might not. First loves are tricky!

I taught Pre-K and one student always wanted to he around me and would pretend to slip up and call me mom. He saw my phone had a screensaver of me and my at the time boyfriend and he got all mad and said I should break up with him lol. Kids are adorable, I doubt he’ll remember me in a few years

3. That’s such a tough situation to handle.

I was a special needs teacher. There was zero subtlety. One student would constantly try to lift up my skirt.

2. Toxic masculinity rears its ugly head again.

I teach at a university and students ask me out. I had a student once ask me out in front of the class while I was teaching, but I think it was more a power move than anything else.

Edit: Bonus story! I teach a sexuality class and a student brought up negging. I asked the class for a definition and one dude goes, “you’re pretty for a sociologist.” The entire class was horrified that he had negged me.

1. Ah, the sweet innocence of little children.

I taught preschool and the owners grandson would tell everyone we were going to get married once he was done with first grade. He even gave me mittens with hearts on them because hearts are for love.
He’s in middle school now and doesn’t remember me. ??‍♀️

Just one more reason teachers are saints because I’m not sure I could be so consistently gracious.

Have you ever had a crush on a teacher? Did they know about it? Tell us what happened in the comments!

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Here’s a Simple Trick Can Help You Choose Correctly Between “Who” and “Whom”

Like most people, I struggle with this conundrum. But if you’re someone who likes to sound smart and use proper grammar like an educated person and all of that, you might want to be able to use ‘whom’ when it’s appropriate.

But when is that, exactly? Well, we’re both about to learn, using this simple trick.

It’s a mnemonic device – the idea is you just mentally exchange the ‘who’ or ‘whom’ in the sentence with he or him. If he makes the sentence correct, then you use ‘who,’ but if him fits the bill, you should go with ‘whom’ (if the situation is formal enough to warrant it).

The device works because ‘who’ and ‘he’ are both subjective pronouns, meaning you use them to refer to the subject of the sentence, while ‘whom’ and ‘him’ are objective pronouns, meaning they refer to the object of the sentence.

It works even better if you rephrase the questions as statements.

For example: “Whom will you invite to dinner?” is correct, and you can figure this out by switching the question to a statement and using ‘you’ as the subject. “You will invite him to dinner,” not “You will invite he to dinner.”

Also, the trick isn’t sexist – she and her, and they and them also work – but he and him sound similar to who and whom, which makes things easier on your brain.

And let’s be honest, when it comes to using proper grammar, anything you can do to make it easier is a benefit, if you ask me.

Are you going to use this trick? Do you even care whether you ever use whom?

I think this is so easy I might actually start trying it!

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A School in Tennessee Banned ‘Harry Potter’ Books. In 2019.

What year are we living in? Oh, that’s right, it’s 2019…and apparently, some things never change.

A Catholic school in Nashville, Tennessee, has removed J.W. Rowling’s world-famous Harry Potter books from its shelves because the school’s pastor said, “These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception. The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text.”

St. Edward Catholic School pastor Father Dan Reehil wrote an email to parents at the school explaining the decision. Reehil said in the message that he consulted with several exorcists in the U.S. and in Italy before making his decision. That seems like time well spent, doesn’t it?

Rebecca Hammel, the superintendent of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Nashville, said, “Each pastor has canonical authority to make such decisions for his parish school. He’s well within his authority to act in that manner.”

This is not the first time that the Harry Potter series has been under scrutiny from schools. From 2001 until 2003, the series was on the American Library Association’s list of “most challenged books.”

Father Reehil started exploring the possibility of banning the Harry Potter books after he received an inquiry from a parent. I bet that kid thinks his parents are a BLAST.

It’s hard to believe that this kind of thing still happens in 2019, but here we are…

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Here Are Some Funny ‘First Day of School’ Photos to Get You Ready for the School Year

If you’ve looked at social media over the past couple weeks, even for a second, there’s no doubt you’ve seen an endless stream of “back to school” photos from all your friends who have kids.

And, hey, they’re pretty adorable!

By now, it’s a time-honored tradition to post a pic of “Lucy’s First Day of Second Grade” or “Timmy’s First Day of Kindergarten.”

But there’s a flipside to all of this joy…it’s what the kids look (and feel) like after that big first day of school. And it is pure exhaustion and trauma. Take a look for yourself:

1. To Hell and back

First day back at school took its toll on this little girl from CasualUK

2. Very bleak

Before and after the first day of school. The future suddenly looks bleak. from funny

3. Frazzled

Photo Credit: Imgur

4. Defeated

View post on imgur.com

5. Couldn’t handle it

View post on imgur.com

6. One of them clearly isn’t feeling it

There’s two types of kids on the first day of school.. from funny

7. Time for a nap

First submission. My niece had a hard day at school.

8. Comfortable?

Posted by Carole Garcia on Thursday, September 1, 2016

9. NOPE

My 7-year-old was not interested in going to school today. from pics

10. Mom seems a little overzealous

It’s gonna be another loooooong year.

Those photos are absolutely hilarious. Share yours in the comments!

The post Here Are Some Funny ‘First Day of School’ Photos to Get You Ready for the School Year appeared first on UberFacts.

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Here Are Some Funny ‘First Day of School’ Photos to Get You Ready for the School Year

If you’ve looked at social media over the past couple weeks, even for a second, there’s no doubt you’ve seen an endless stream of “back to school” photos from all your friends who have kids.

And, hey, they’re pretty adorable!

By now, it’s a time-honored tradition to post a pic of “Lucy’s First Day of Second Grade” or “Timmy’s First Day of Kindergarten.”

But there’s a flipside to all of this joy…it’s what the kids look (and feel) like after that big first day of school. And it is pure exhaustion and trauma. Take a look for yourself:

1. To Hell and back

First day back at school took its toll on this little girl from CasualUK

2. Very bleak

Before and after the first day of school. The future suddenly looks bleak. from funny

3. Frazzled

Photo Credit: Imgur

4. Defeated

View post on imgur.com

5. Couldn’t handle it

View post on imgur.com

6. One of them clearly isn’t feeling it

There’s two types of kids on the first day of school.. from funny

7. Time for a nap

First submission. My niece had a hard day at school.

8. Comfortable?

Posted by Carole Garcia on Thursday, September 1, 2016

9. NOPE

My 7-year-old was not interested in going to school today. from pics

10. Mom seems a little overzealous

It’s gonna be another loooooong year.

Those photos are absolutely hilarious. Share yours in the comments!

The post Here Are Some Funny ‘First Day of School’ Photos to Get You Ready for the School Year appeared first on UberFacts.

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Women in Africa Are Recycling Plastic into Bricks for a Schoolhouse

Tthe world produces over 300 million tons of plastic every year, much of which quickly goes into the trash where it takes centuries to decompose. In Abidjan, Ivory Coast, women are putting plastic garbage to good use by turning it into bricks to build schools, New York Times reports.

Many women in Abidjan make a living by gathering plastic waste from city streets and selling it to recycling centers. Those same women are now working with a Colombian company to convert the waste into bricks to build schools.

The project will result in hundreds of classrooms to serve about 26,400 students — plus, it’s an opportunity for the women to make a better living.

Many schools in the area are built out of traditional mud-bricks and wood. These buildings require a lot of upkeep, as they easily erode in the sun and rain.

The buildings made out of recycled plastic, on the other hand, will last practically forever. In this context, plastic’s slow decomposition is a benefit.

Also, the country’s classrooms are severely overcrowded, with up to 90 students in each class. Additional classrooms are desperately needed.

Since Abidjan produces about 300 tons of plastic waste a day, there’s plenty of plastic to use. Each classroom takes about five tons of plastic waste.

The company converting the waste, Conceptos Plásticos, initially produced the bricks at a factory in Colombia, but they are now building a factory in Abidjan, which will make the classrooms much cheaper to produce.

Several classrooms are already up and running, and the project plans to deliver 528 total, each of which will fit 50 students.

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John Corcoran, a teacher, taught for…

John Corcoran, a teacher, taught for 17 years while being illiterate. He struggled in the 6th grade and never learned to read or write, and cheated his way through college. At the age of 47, he finally learned when he was inspired by Barbara Bush advocating for adult literacy.

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Take a Look at These Commonly Used Words That Are Actually Acronyms

Did you know there are words in the English language (recognized by Webster) that were once acronyms? I suppose they could still be considered acronyms, but our lexicon has adopted them as pieces of vocabulary in their own right.

Here are a few interesting words that were once abbreviations.

5. L.A.S.E.R

Photo Credit: Pixabay

LASER stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. The first laser was invented in 1960, but had a different name: LOSER. The “O” stood for ocsillation, because a laser (light) is technically an optical oscillator not an optical amplifier. But as the acronym rapidly spread, oscillation was later replaced by amplification. For obvious reasons.

4. C.A.R.E. Packages

Photo Credit: Pixabay

CARE packages started in 1945 after the end of World War II. Care stood for the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe, a group that started preparing packages filled with leftover “humanitarian aid to millions starving in post-war Europe.”

History.com explains, “These first ‘CARE Packages’ contained everything from whole-milk powder and liver loaf to margarine and coffee. The contents of CARE Packages soon expanded to include soap, diapers, school supplies, and medicine as well as fabric, thread, and needles to allow recipients to make and mend clothes.”

3. Navy S.E.A.L.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

The SEALs are a group of America’s toughest and most elite navy professionals. Their name stands for “SEa, Air, and Land”. This special operations force adopted the name “SEAL” because of their training and duties spanned “all environments (sea, air, and land)”.

2. S.C.U.B.A.

This well-known activity has been around since 1939. It was first used in military applications, but is now widely enjoyed by vacationers for entertainment, biologists for scientific research, and in many other circumstances. But it wasn’t coined “SCUBA” until 1952.

Wikipedia states, “In the U.S. Major Christian J. Lambertsen invented an underwater free-swimming oxygen rebreather in 1939. In 1952 he patented a modification of his apparatus, this time named SCUBA (an acronym for “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus“).

1. Z.I.P. Codes

As we all know, this term is used to help the post office designate what township or region a building or home location resides. It means Zone Improvement Plan Code.

The ZIP code “was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently and quickly (zipping along) when senders use the code in the postal address.”

Before ZIP codes’ inception, delivering mail was taxing. Robert Moon, a career postal employee, created the first codes, consisting of only 3 numbers that notated each central mail processing facility. It wasn’t until 1963 that the ZIP codes expanded to five numbers so as to have more combinations available to accurately reflect area.

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A College Drop-Out Spent 11 Years in Bed Due to Mysterious Illness, Invented a Surgery to Cure Himself

At 21 years of age, Doug Lindsay was forced to drop out of college due to a mysterious condition that doctors were unable to solve for the next 11 years — until he invented his own cure.

Doug spent the years of his illness mostly confined to a hospital bed at home in St. Louis, Missouri. His symptoms included weakness, dizziness, and a racing heartbeat. He couldn’t stand for more than a few minutes at a time.

Doctors were stumped; no treatments seemed to help. The condition was hereditary, however. Doug’s mom suffered from the same thing, as did his aunt.

While at school, Doug had picked up a 2200-page endocrinology textbook, hoping to use it to figure out his mother’s condition. From it, he determined that his illness stemmed from his adrenal glands.

During his many years of bedridden life, he continued to immerse himself in medical research and old medical textbooks. He also consulted with specialists from endocrinology, neurology, internal medicine, and other specialties.

This work eventually led Doug to experiment with a new drug for his condition, which allowed him to be active for short periods of time around the house. In 2006, he came up with a diagnosis: bilateral adrenal medullary hyperplasia. In other words, his adrenal glands were producing too much adrenaline.

This discovery led Doug to invent a surgery to cure the problem, without ever even having obtained a college degree. After finally convincing a surgeon to try his new operation (pioneering a surgery is not at all simple), in 2010 and 2012, he underwent surgeries to remove the medullas from his adrenal glands, curbing his adrenaline production.

Doug still has to take medication for his condition — but he has his life back. He now works as a medical consultant and serves as an inspiration to chronic illness sufferers around the world.

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??… ?

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“I couldn’t be an assistant manager at Trader Joe’s. I don’t have the physical ability for that,” Doug said. “But I can travel and give speeches and go for walks. And I can try to change the world.”

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