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A Syllabus Syllabary
1. Syllaball: A lavish party that you will feel like throwing when you are finished.
2. Syllabug: That little typo that crept in when you weren’t looking.
3. Syllabuts: Carefully worded exceptions to your standard policies.
4. Syllaberry: The tasty morsel of fresh writing you might add.
Not to be confused with:
5. Syllabury: What students will do with it the first week.
6. Syllabuster: What could happen in your class if you don’t have your policies clearly stated.
7. Sillybuster: Your secret opinion of the colleague who puts humor in it.
8. Syllabucks: What you will spend many of if you make your copies at home.
9. Syllabusy: Why you can’t go out the week before classes begin.
10. Psi-labus: The phenomenon of a student whose uncanny questions are answered by the next section of your syllabus.
11. Silobus: What your home office will look like if you keep printing out revisions.
12. Syllabuzz: What will happen if you drink too much coffee while preparing it.
13. Syllabit: The kernel of last year’s that you can use again.
14. Syllabyte: The electronic version.
15. Syllabore: What you will sound like the first day if you read it out loud by yourself -- even if it is a masterpiece of legal writing.
16. Syllabanter: The complaining you prefer that students do when you’re out of earshot..
17. Syllabunt: Policies that defer to others in your department, college, etc.
18. Syllabruxism: Teeth gnashing that accompanies point calculations.
19. Syllabully: That certain student who will read it mainly for the purpose of challenging you.
20. Syllabowl: A contest for whose can be the longest and/or use the smallest typeface while remaining legible. Also: A container in which to keep snacks as you write.
21. Syllabuy: Including the latest editions, materials, etc., for students to purchase, even if your desk copy hasn’t arrived yet.
22. Sylla-bi: That pleasant feeling you get when you teach more than one section of the same course and thus have less to type.
23. Syllabill: What you feel like sending your department for your preparation time.
24. Syllafuss: The panic that sweeps through the classroom when students read about oral presentations, research papers, or whatever they don’t like to do. Also: The process of generating lists of bad puns on the theme of syllabus preparation.
25. Syllabrate: What you must do when you are finished.
