Description

Scott, Foresman and Company, Glenview, Illinois [Published date: 1969]. Hardcover, 79 pp; illustrations throughout by the author; 28 cm. No other printings listed. In good+ condition/ NO dust jacket. Green and white boards have light bumping to edges and light overall scuffing and faint soiling. Binding tight. Previous owner's name in ink and an address label in the top corner of the front free end paper. Two interior pages (38-39) have toning from a laid-in newspaper clipping. Otherwise pages are clean and unmarked. Not ex-library. [From Introduction] These are Pullet Surprises. The name is the unwitting contribution of a high school student whose teacher shared with me a paper in which he had written, "In 1957 Eugene O'Neill won a Pullet Surprise." A Pullet Surprise! Here was the term for which I had been groping. As the teacher of a high school course in vocabulary building, I had jotted down hundreds of classroom misinterpretations for which I had found no name. The terms boners, bloopers, and boo-boos imply stupidity or inadvertence, whereas student errors are often marvels of ingenuity and logic. Howlers would exclude those refreshing interpretations that evoke a chuckle, not a shout. I had rejected all customary designations as unsuitable. But Pullet Surprise sparked a Eureka response. Its rightness had the impact of revelation. Every misinterpretation is by nature a surprise; the word Pullet is from the Latin pullus, meaning a young animal; the most engaging of young animals are those in our high schools. Of course their errors are Pullet Surprises! [Contents] Acknowledgment; To the Reader; Introduction; Section I The Happily Unaware: Mistaken Identity; Blurrish; The Power of Suggestion; Section II The Uneasily Aware: Noble Effort; Little Learning; Right-and-Wrong; Linguistic Labyrinth; Section III The Nonchalant: The Haphazard; A New Look; Section IV The Trusting: Take-It-For-Granites; Chameleon Words; Appendix Pullet Surprise Guessing Games.