My Antonia
I'll always remember my 11th grade English Lit teacher Mrs. Foster. She was a demure-looking older lady with a weird sense of humor and a heavy southern-U.S. accent. When we read Willa Cather's "My Antonia", there was a particular passage that she singled out to read aloud at high volume. The paragraph was something about a character looking out across the fields and seeing all the wheat standing proud, using a variety of suggestive-sounding metaphors about the erect state of said wheat. She then asked, "So... what is this passage really talking about?"

Being perverted little teenagers, of course we all understood. But no-one wanted to be the first person to admit that the reading assignment had made them think of boners. We all sort of looked about with shifty eyes for a few moments, as Mrs. Foster began to grow impatient. Suddenly her strident accent rang out: "Penises! It's all *penises*!!!"

Length: a good 3-4 feet tall...
(enervatrice, Mon 21 Mar 2011, 2:07, 2 replies)

Lucky old you!
For 'O' Level English, we were taught Romeo And Juliet in two groups by two teachers.

My group received a straightforward, highly literary reading - similes, metaphors, various types of verse, all the dull but worthy facts.

The other lot got all the rude stuff: for example, how an account of the 'strokes' and 'thrusts' of a swordfight could just as easily be about sex, if described by a swaggering young man.

It was as if there were TWO plays, and I got the boring one. I love the old Bard but I can't help thinking that I'd have loved him sooner and more strongly if I'd been in the other group.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Mon 21 Mar 2011, 8:33, closed)

Paynisses!
Ah'm talkin' about PAY nisses!
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Wed 23 Mar 2011, 14:26, closed)