Oh! Y'all want hilarity, try papermaking with an all-boys high school class
(or any middle school class I'm sure). There are SO MANY TERMS to evoke the
giggling. They seemed to think that the word "deckle" was hilarious (as in
"mould & deckle") - I'm not sure why THAT one was funny - but oh, everything
else. One that's sure to get them started is telling them about "couching"
the sheets - it rhymes with smooching, and evokes something else for them.
Never tell high school boys to set up a "couching station." That's bad
enough...but there are a few terms I completely skipped with one group since
I knew they couldn't handle it. Like - this is a good one - when you
agitate the fibers in the vat with your hand, it's called "hogging the
slur!" "Don't forget to hog the slur" - oh dear --
But the BEST part of this whole story was that I brought in a guest
papermaker to do a workshop with freshmen boys, and she wasn't thinking
about double entendres. So not only did they have to "hog the slur" and
couch - but, my favorite, they found out that "the longer you beat it, the
stiffer it gets" (the longer you beat the fibers, the stiffer the resulting
paper will be). AAAGH!!! I nearly fell over. Oh, and don't forget to do
such-and-such or else the paper will "cockle." Now these are all proper
terms, but so Beavis & Butthead-worthy for 9th graders...she kept coming out
with doozies like that and though these 9th-grade boys were STRUGGLING to
control themselves (as she in blissful ignorance kept on hogging the slur) I
wanted to say, "Ok! Forget it! Class dismissed!" It was SOOOOOOOOOooooo
funny...
