As you know, I was sick Thursday and ended up staying home on Friday. Upon my return, this is the conversation I had with my math teacher. (Lest I look like a sour, disrespectful creature, I should note that said teacher and his students give each other crap all the time.)

Allison: So what did I miss?
Mr. K.: On Friday we went over imaginary numbers. You can read section one of chapter nine, and then do problems 6-48 by threes and number 52.
Allison: Imaginary numbers, hm? So 'eleventeen' is an acceptable answer for all the questions, right?
Mr. K.: Not quite. See, the imaginary number is the square root of negative one. The imaginary number is a bold lowercase 'I'--
Allison: That's not a number.
Mr. K.: What?
Allison: 'I' isn't a number. It's a letter.
Mr. K.: Well, it represents a number, like 'x' defines a variable.
Allison: I don't get it. X is x because you don't know what x is. Since you know what i is, why can't you just write it as what it is?
Mr. K.: Because you don't.
Allison: But that's stupid. If i is defined as the square root of -1, then why don't they just write it as the square root of -1?
Mr. K.: Because you don't. It's like pi, except it uses a letter instead of a symbol.
Allison: Like Prince, but pronounceable?
Mr. K.: (laughs) Sure. It's a letter that represents a number. Now shut up and do the assignment.

...later...
Allison: Wait. Number 27 is confusing me.
Mr. K.: Yeah, that's hard to do.
Allison: Hey! You're mocking me. Are you mocking me?
Mr. K.: (laughs) That's what it sounded like, isn't it?
Allison: Well, quite frankly, I don't hold with that kind of gorch. It's all a bunch of asadoplunk, and I think this googlecheck is stiffleputzen.
Mr. K.: (does an exaggerated double-take) What?!
Allison: (crosses arms, leans back) You use imaginary numbers, I use imaginary words.
Mr. K.: (laughs) Fair's fair. I have to ask, though, how do you spell stiffleputzen?
Allison: 62.
Mr. K.: What?
Allison: They're numbers that represent letters.