A teaching funny

I guess I'm getting better at thinking on my feet. (Believe it or not, I'm not that good at it - or at least I was not, formerly).

Today in class I was covering mitosis, and talked about how bacterial cells and other single-celled organisms reproduce using mitosis - they just divide, and there you have it, two bacteria where there was just one. But of course, there's no genetic variability.

And then I realized I needed to clarify, because bacteria can have genetic transfer and recombination, they just don't do it as a part of reproduction. I explained that there's a process called "bacterial sex" where the bacteria exchange genetic material...and responding to a few questioning looks, I said, "When biologists talk about sex, they mean the genetic-recombination part of it, not the..."

And I realized I didn't quite know what to say next. I probably, in a company of full-fledged biologists, would have said "...they PHYSICAL part of it" but I was afraid of confusing people more. And I'm not comfortable using any of the coarse words (and even what are considered not-so-coarse these days, like "screwing") for the sex act in class (I am, after all, a LADY, and I go to some pains to present that image).

But my mind works pretty fast, and so the phrase "boom-chicka-wa-wa" sprang into my head, so I finished the statement off as "...when biologists talk about sex, they usually don't mean the 'boom-chicka-wa-wa' part of sex."

And I got a laugh out of the class, which was good. And hopefully I made my point.

(I've also recently learned - thanks, Completely Pointless and Arbitrary Group - that "brown chicken, brown cow" can be used to onomatopeize the same musical phrase. But I think more people, at least in this part of the country, know "boom chicka wa wa.")


(ETA: Someone suggested I could have said "intercourse." Yeah, I could have, it's just I didn't think of that right away. This is an 8 am class after all. Maybe they'll remember boom-chicka-wa-wa better, anyway.)