Grading. One of my extra credit questions is "Where does the word pidgin come from?"

One student's answer:

Well, see the word pidgin comes from the bird pigeon. Way back in the day, sailors were marooned on an island and found a tribe of locals. The two groups could not understand each other for the longest time. One day they discovered, though, that they had the same word for this particular bird. From this one word, the two groups created a language that incorporated aspects of both their languages. Eventually, the sailors were rescued and told the rest of the world their tale. However, since they were sailors, they couldn't spell. That is why pidgin is spelled differently than pigeon."

Needless to say, they got the credit.

The actual answer is from a Chinese pidgin; the word means "business."