English Language Books

English text books is a huge industry. There are countless different books for all age levels, skills and jobs. Some of the books are horrible and others are excellent. Personally, I appreciate the books that have some subtle jokes that only native English speakers would really pick up on. However, the other day I was using a text that had a hilarious joke that seemingly anyone who keeps up with current events could have found funny.

If you follow the news, you would know that some Islamic people don't consider it cool to draw pictures of their Prophet Mohammad. In recent years, a few cartoonists have been threatened with death because of their drawings. The controversy has been in America too, most recently with South Park's 200th episode which Comedy Central won't allow to be streamed online. Anyway, check out example #18 from my text book below:



I think it's pretty genius to dress up Mohammad in a costume as a way to draw him in a published book. I'm extremely confident that this isn't just a coincidence even though the book was published in 1999. For one thing, the name Mohammad isn't exactly common in an English text book. Most of the names are more like Alice, Jill, Mary, Alex and Bob. Secondly the book isn't exactly filled with cartoons. I feel like there had to be some serious thought to this going into the book.

The point is, there's some funny stuff in text books.