In one of my classes the current storybook is called "Medical Miracles." The title speaks for itself, but this particular lesson told the story of a college football player who injured his spinal cord in a game. He should have been paralyzed, but the doctors performed a "miraculous" surgery which allowed him to walk and fully function again. Anyway, we were discussing the word paralyzed, what it means, the implications of being paralyzed, and so on. One of my students volunteered his own story that he had seen on TV. He began to describe a man who had broken his neck and then became a "plant man."
"Plant man? what?" I asked, and continued to repeat the phrase, making sure the student and I were saying the same words. All of the rest of his classmates joined in, agreeing with this term, plant man, as if it were an English phrase that I was just unaware of. "I'm sorry, I just don't know what you're saying, or talking about," an expression I use often. They were persistent about this one, though, arguing that a plant man is someone who breaks their neck or has some sort of severe injury and then cannot move, speak, eat, or really do anything on their own. It finally came to me: a vegetable.
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