Is it apple or prune? That’s what some accounting students think when they hear the word “turnover.” In his 40-plus years as an accounting practitioner and teacher of both undergraduate and graduate accounting students, Charles J. Pendola has heard some crazy definitions of some basic accounting terms.

Say what? Here’s one that valuation practitioners will appreciate: The term “watered down” was not defined as an asset that has been overvalued but, rather, as “what you do after a workout.” Pendola’s favorite was when a student in a graduate accounting course defined the sum-of-the-years’ digits depreciation method this way: "You add up some of the years, but not all, and I don’t know which ones."

Pendola, director of graduate management studies programs at St. Joseph's College (Patchogue, N.Y.), offers a fractured glossary of accounting terms in an article in Accounting Today.