Suspect

There's a website out there called ratemyteachers.com which allows students and parents to anonymously rate teachers on their performance in the classroom. My own ratings have come in pretty good overall (with the exception of one kid dinging me last year - I guess you can't win 'em all). Anyway, I was reading over the posts, and noting that they all reflect the standard (substandard) English that is de rigeur for middle schoolers - text message-style abbreviations, minor misspellings, etc.

Except for one.

Down at the bottom, the second rating I received, reads:

He is the best teacher ever! He's really funny and just a cool teacher to have. When I'm in high school I plan on visiting him, everyday or so. He's da bomb!!!!

No misspellings, appropriate grammar, and (reasonably) standard English, with the small exception of the phrase "da bomb." (I don't believe a comma is necessary in the third sentence, either. Still, a minor error).

The problem here is the phrase at the end: He's da bomb!!!!

Now, kids in this corner of the country don't really use that phrase. At least, middle schoolers don't. Since I've had middle schoolers for about eight years now, I'd hazard to say high schoolers don't say it, either. I certainly don't hear it in class that much. Actually, the two words that get thrown around the most to mean "cool" are "sick" and "beast." I'm always thrown off by "sick" - a boy was showing me a photo of a Fender Telecaster he wanted to buy - "Check it out, Mr. Rainey! Isn't that sick?" Um...no...not really...uh...

"Beast," on the other hand, I find quite cool. It has an almost British feel to it. "Oh my God, Mr. Rainey, that's so beast!" Kind of rolls off the tongue. Of all the words that have come along during my teaching career to mean "cool" (including dope, da bomb, and the horiffic phat), only beast has won a spot in my heart. May it have as long a life as my own generation's awesome.

But, back to the original point: I don't believe it was one of my students who wrote that review. The spelling and grammar was too perfect, but the giveaway was the colloquialism that isn't terribly colloquial, at least in my neck of the woods.

I do believe the person responsible for the post is a reader of this blog. I will allow him/her to identify him/herself. Now, don't get me wrong - it sure is a nice thing to say, and I know for a fact it was done out of love, and the fact that I only had one other review at the time, and it didn't even have a comment.

I guess I just wanted to show off my C.S.I.-like skills of deductive reasoning and clue-gathering.



All I know is, it'd be totally beast if I'm right.