logos redux

They went to bed, as reason was and right,
For wives, albeit very holy things,
Are bound to suffer patiently at night
Such necessary pleasures as the King’s,
Or others’ who have wedded them with rings.
Her holiness - well, she must do without it
Just for a little, and that’s all about it.

From “The Man of Law’s Tale” in Neville Coghill’s translation of The Canterbury Tales. I guess this goes to show that the notion that sex is a dirty necessary evil has quite a pedigree from Augustine and the Patristics through Chaucer and right on up to our own time.

…I feel God has called [me] into the field of missions. I believe that one day, by the will of God, I will go to Africa… Through this experience I want people to know and remember me as someone who always followed God no matter where he led! Also, in the area of religion I want to be remembered as a great whiteness for Christ….

I was reading one of the papers written by one of my 9th graders when I came across this happily ironic misspelling. My response in the margin was:

Well, in Africa you might well be a great whiteness for Christ, but I imagine what you want to be remembered as is a witness.

[Update] The same student has just coined and repeatedly used the word Muslamic on a quiz I’m grading.

Allah: the Muslamic god.

I kind of like it.