My students have a knack for getting worked up about the element symbols on the periodic table. They just do not want to deal with the fact that iron is Fe and potassium is K and tungsten is W and sodium is Na, etc. I explained that the symbols came from the Latin names of the elements.
Frustrated student: "we're in America! Why do we care about Latvia?"
Me: Laughing uncontrollably
Student: not getting it
Me: "you do know that they don't speak Latin in Latvia, don't you?"
Student: "They don't?"
Me: "No, they don't"
Rest of class: "No, you dummy- Latin is a DEAD language!"
No comments:
Post a Comment