Answer:
One of your professors, perhaps your English professor, seems unreasonably cranky lately. Before you or any one of your classmates assumes that your professor is one of those perpetually wretched people who need to retire, consider his or her typical daily frustrations. First, your professor has likely had only about three hours’ sleep, having stayed up until nearly dawn to grade your homework or essays. Maybe there are a few things that have already gone wrong: Say the professor’s computer has locked up, neither the printer nor the copying machine is functioning, and one of the new deans has called a mandatory afternoon faculty meeting. Further, not one of your professor’s colleagues has been thoughtful enough to make a simple pot of coffee. Despite it all, your professor delivers a brilliant lecture on subject-verb agreement rules, the likes of which neither the students nor even the professor has ever experienced. The entire class, your grammarian peers, stands to cheer. And into class you stroll, twenty minutes late, your cell phone in one hand and a cup of aromatic coffee in the other, and ask, “Did I miss anything important?”