Fallen or Slipped

Side splitting slips like these are collected by teachers throughout the world, who don’t mind sharing a little humor while taking their jobs seriously. Many an inmate in the house of correction (of composition) know the one variously attributed to William Lyon Phelps of Yale University, Tubby Rogers of M.I.T., and others, who allegedly found this sentence gleaming out of a student essay: “The girl tumbled down the stairs and lay prostitute at the bottom.” In the margin of the paper, the professor commented: “My dear sir, you must learn to distinguish between a fallen woman and one who has merely slipped.”