Is a baby scorpion in your take-out the Arizona version of a horse's head in your bed?

Only at McDonalds. If it had been KFC, they would have battered it and fried it first. Mmmmmm.

@doctor_cos: ...then stick it between two pieces of fried chicken breast.

The reporter quoted him as saying "cuz" rather than "'cause"?

@Stephen Schenck: You should put reporter in quotes. Like this: The "reporter" quoted him as saying "cuz" rather than "'cause"?

@Stephen Schenck: It was actually his student who said "cuz".

Let's hope he's not an English teacher D:

Arizona has a real scorpion problem. Remember the Southwest flight where someone was stung by a scorpion.

The scorpion was complimentary! It's part of a nutritious breakfast!

Is that a bark scorpion? Can't tell...but the only really dangerous scorpions are the infants (usually clinging to the mother's body) because their venom is more potent and they swarm. Looks semi-mature to me.

And while it's not something you want with your suicide mcbiscuit at least having one in a mcdonalds likely means there's no roaches in the kitchen ;)

This kind of stuff happens all the time. Bugs crawl into stuff sometimes - does it have to make the 6:00 news?

Like, totally, like, man, I was, like, scared.

@doctor_cos: That actually might taste good, as long as they cut the stinger off first. It'd be like a "Bizarre Foods" episode from the Travel Channel, only at your local KFC. Besides, everything tastes better battered and fried.

@Stephen Schenck: Well, it makes sense. If they had quoted the student as saying cause, it could be confused with the actual word rather than an abbreviated version of because (I have no idea what the accepted spelling is)

@KStrike155: That's pretty much how a teenage girl would react except it's a dude.

@doctor_cos: You should tried the UNfried side of KFC; they're offering grilled scorpions now.

@changed my name: Scorpions aren't just bugs in the same way that sharks aren't just fish.

Best. Happymeal. EVER.

@Stephen Schenck: @coren: The accepted spelling is "cause" if the student meant for cuz to be the slang expression for "cause" which is actually the shortened version of "because."

The AP style journalism adheres to allows for quotes to be left as they are if it conveys a dialect or a tone. For instance, no one native to New Orleans should be quoted if he or she has the Cajun dialect. You could clean it up for slightly more clarity (because if anyone's heard a real Cajun dialect, it's half English, half French, all mixed together, and really hard to understand), but in no way should the reporter completely clean it up to resemble something someone without an accent would way.

It's about preserving the dialect. I think that the student said "cuz" is a stretch in that rule, but it's possibly just laziness. It's not hard to put [because] in place of that word.

@pecan 3.14159265: Oy. My post finger failed just now. I meant that if someone has a Cajun accent, they should be quoted according to how they speak, not cleaned up totally as if someone without an accent said it.

@elangomatt: I almost hurled the other night when Andrew Zimmern was in Japan and ate a plate of pig testicles and then a frog heart. It was still beating! I think I could be an adventurous eater, but I draw the line at that.

@Taed: In AZ they are. If you ever see someone knocking their shoes upsidedown before they put them on you'll know their an AZ native. It's just habit. Scorpions are the norm.

I am surprised no one has commented on the fact that the student was picking up food for the teacher.That seems somewhat inappropriate (certainly not as bad as other things that could happen, but still a potential misuse of authority).

@gemetzel:
"Best. Happymeal. EVER."

Perhaps for Les "Survivorman" Stroud or Bear "I'll show you how to survive on an island adjacent to my 5 star resort" Grylls.

I generally like my fast food without poisionous creatures.

@Rachacha: That occurred to me, too. But I was sort of thinking that the student was bribing the teacher.

@Rachacha: Seems perfectly above board to me (unless there's evidence otherwise).

It's a good thing that the scorpion didn't bite anybody.

/sits with my bingo card and waits for the wrath of comments about how scorpions sting and don't bite.

@pecan 3.14159265: But even when you're reflecting a dialect, you're abiding by regular orthography and not spelling phonetically, right? I know it's a big issue in other writing, because what tends to happen is that class and race get conveyed by switching to a phonetic indication, despite the fact that the pronunciation conveyed can actually be pretty common.

In other words, most of America pronounces "because" as "becuz," none of it pronounces the final "s" as indistinguishable from a "z" (because that is actually the correct pronunciation), and most of us shorten it in speech to "'cause" with some frequency. So changing it to "cuz" in the quote is an obnoxious thing that they wouldn't have done if the speaker were a powerful adult, even if the adult pronounced the word exactly the same way.

@bastion72: Actually, it should read: The "reporter" quoted him as saying "cuz" rather than "'cause."

@floraposte: I actually don't pronounce the 'cause portion of because as "cuz." I say "coz." Maybe it's a midwestern thing, as my local acquaintances tend to do that as well.

@Rachacha: When I was in high school jazz band, someone would always volunteer to take orders for the group. Practise was at 7:00am, and we liked our teacher well enough, so why not?

@pecan 3.14159265: Frog...heart?

Gasp!

(hides from Andrew Zimmern)

@bastion72: Only if it was from BBC. They put everything in quotes in their headlines:
CIA "threatened" terror suspects
Afghan polling "marked by fraud"
Pace of HBO's decline "unexpected"

@nstonep: "Mackenzie Handel, one of Tallman's students" sounds like a teenage girl to me.

At least it didn't swoop out of the overhead compartment on an airliner and sting him in the hand...

@fjordtjie: hahaha nope. guy named mackenzie.

Even BABY scorpions aren't cute.
The must have a really rough time of things during middle school.

@Rachacha: Well, if your teacher put out, wouldn't you?
/joke!

@pecan 3.14159265: I'd guess that the author was working with a poor understanding of how AP style deals with"dialects."
Unless there is a compelling reason to keep grammatical quirks like these, they should be fixed. When I interview people and I'm taking notes, items like "cuz" automatically get translated into because. It's just second nature. Even if I'm using a tape recorder, when the interview gets transcribed, the quote would be fixed.

@Britt: Exactly.
We'd bend over backwards* to do favors for great teachers. Even buy them things ever so often.
* But not forwards, obviously. We weren't that cheap!

@pecan 3.14159265: I'm relived that the pig testicles weren't still beating as well.

@nstonep: Wouldn't it actually indicate the presence of roaches? If there weren't any there, the scorpion would have no reason to be there either.

@Trai_Dep: Dang it! I was about to say how absolutely adorable he looked.

@Bluth_Cornballer: Instead i'll just check off the "obvious troll/trollbait" box ;)

This is a prime example of a time where the image should be of a cat eating mcdonalds, not a scorpion which the mere sight of makes me scream and hide behind my husband.

@Trai_Dep: Baby everythings are cute, and then you look at that & get shivers...YUCK!

@Rachacha: Oh, it's fine. I used to go pick up lunch for the teacher I was a TA for during the period right before lunch all the time time. The lunch break is only 35 minutes, but classes were like 1 1/2 hours. So, I leave before lunch starts, bring lunch back at lunch time and we're both happy.

The kid probably had the teacher for first period, or had to do some kind of early morning project or something. Just because [cuz] a teacher and a student are friends it doesn't mean anything suspicious is going on.

I'm pretty sure I read "Arizona" somewhere.

@Trai_Dep: Ironically, a teacher that I had for 6th grade (+25 years ago) was recently arrested for alleged sexual misconduct with a minor (not a student). He is currently awaiting trial. So apparently one of my teachers DID put out ;-) I would not have been interested though, he had a beard.

@pecan 3.14159265: I love that show, but some of the stuff he eats makes me go BRAAAAAACK.

Gross out!