evol. history prof, pauses his lecture: “Say the word.”
**long silence**
TA: “What word are you fishing for?”
evol. history prof: “It sounds like… *pause*
… 'probabilistic'.”
**another long silence**
Me: “The word is probabilistic?”
evol. history prof: “No, the word is certain. But yes, it is
in fact ‘probabilistic.’”

same prof: "I don’t think there was any conscious
appropriation of Aristotle… Aristotle was in the air… a mild
miasma."

ibid.: "If you let the elephants go at it, all of a sudden
you're beep-deep in elephants."

ibid.: "What Darwin is trying to say is that females are
perfectly arbitrary."

same class, a student: "But can the duck ever really resist
its urge to eat off the bottom of the ocean?!"

same class, another student: "There is no perfect flying
squirrel."