Unless you’re still very involved in chemistry or pharmacology you probably won’t remember the periodic table. Most of us have consigned it the same place in history occupied with making our skirts really short for muck-up day and drawing detailed mathematical charts to find out our percentage match with whoever we fancied that week. That was until this morning when we saw this yearbook photo from Paris Gray.
What’s so special about it? Well, the American student used a caption full of the names of chemical elements to spell out, ‘When the going gets tough just remember to Barium, Carbon, Potassium, Thorium, Astatine, Arsenic, Sulfur, Uranium, Phosphorus.’ That list of elements could, if piled in together in real life, cause some real combustion, fumes and damage. But as words, they’re harmless, right? Apparently not, because if you use the periodic table’s shortened codes for those elements, the statement then reads, ‘When the going gets tough just remember to Ba-C-K-Th-At-As-S-U-P.’ As in, ‘Back that ass up.’
Paris’s teachers at Mundy’s Mill High School in Clay County, Georgia, are so bummed out (get it?) that there was a threat she would be suspended from classes and an assistant principal had allegedly said that she can’t walk in graduation or give a scheduled speech in her role as senior class Vice President.
However, it’s since been confirmed that she WILL give that speech, and the school’s superintendent apologised for the miscommunication and challenged Paris to, ‘Give the best speech ever.’
She told WSBTV that the yearbook message was nothing to do with anything sexual, but was more about starting from scratch again. ‘Basically, it was me just saying start all over again. You have to go back and start all over.’
Which is an entirely apt message for people about to leave school for the wilds of college or work or whatever people do when they leave schools and know all that chemistry. And though the school's initial response ‘completely destroyed’ Paris, we’re guessing she’ll make a brilliant speech to show any snooty teachers her mettle.
What does her mum, Zarinah Woods, think? ‘My first reaction was, “You are such a nerd,”’ she told the station.
BRB, we’re using that periodic table to send some sexts.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.