A fly on the wall is a witness to some information that many of us are not privy to. The fly has a privileged position to eavesdrop on conversations that were meant for select ears. The fly is not held responsible for what it hears. Thereby lies the rub. The fly is not bound by the rules of social solecism. It has no recognition of the parties of conversations. It can only repeat what it hears irrespective of the speakers. But, it is always truthful:

A Principal declared to the students of a high school,” We have the best school in the area.” He added, “We have fifty-five Smartboards.”

Parents in a rural, monochromatic small town were very strong when they spoke to the physics teacher, “Because of ______, our children cannot shine.” The student in question was of Asian Indian descent.

The captain of the airplane that came in late and started late said on the PA system, “Because of the weather conditions on the embarking airport, there was frost on the wings and the plane cannot fly on time.” The airport was close to the equator and the temperature was tropical. Any frost brought by the airplane from colder climes would have disappeared in a trice.

A high school Honors English teacher said to the students, “I am not giving you the Honors vocabulary list because I don’t know many of the words. I do not intend to look them up.” The same teacher was quite coherent when she said, “I don’t read”.

A student from the Honors Algebra and Trigonometry course said to a math teacher, ” I know how to find the Standard Deviation on the graphing calculator. But, I don’t know what it is.”

A second grader said to an Asian Indian teacher, “Is that an accent I hear? I like it.”