Today’s high is 48 degrees, which means we’re all going to wear cut-offs, tank tops, and get very sick. I’m feeling good, also because I just finished grading a stack of papers. As I wait for the next wave to wash over me—today around 3:00, then Wednesday morning, then Thursday night’s tsunami (34 papers on the historical Adam), I thought I’d share my latest writing bloopers from the academic world. These are not the funniest, just the latest. Once I hit one hundred I will publish the entire bunch and make a lot of money, so please keep them coming. I italicize the mistake and give my commentary in parentheses.
1. “I believe God reviles Himself in three ways.”
(“You stink!” “You’re short!” “No one likes you!”)
2. “Diabolical sin allows evangelical Christianity to stand in an elevated position and cast dispersion on those it deems less worthy.”
(The author meant “aspersion.” But she shouldn’t be surprised that it was dispersed, because this is likely to happen to whatever you cast.”)
3. “By the time he got to the hospital and raced up to see her, she was already in a comma.”
(This is a terrible place to be, period.)
4. “What we see in the Scriptures are people not much unlike ourselves.”
(They are either really like us or really not. Or perhaps different, but not much. My brain hurts too much to figure it out.)
5. “Naturalism struggles with answering four existential questions: origin, meaning, morality, and density.”
(Parts per square inch technically is an existential description. These mistakes tend to happen when listening to Beyoncé, formerly of Density’s Child.)
6. “We must remind people that no one currently knows what exactly causes Christianity. Although the assumed wisdom is that people with same-sex attraction are ‘born that way’ we simply do not know. On the contrary, we do know with certainty that it is not determined strictly by DNA.”
(I know that arguments can cut both ways, but this one makes me a little uncomfortable.)
Mike Wittmer 
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