A Language Full of LaughsEnglish can be a lot of laughs. Slightly misplaced words, phrases and little commas can result in hilarious double meanings; seemingly minor grammar faux pas can cause readers to break out in gales of laughter when no humour was ever intended by the writer. You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on. The English language laughs contained on these pages were gathered from a number of sources. Where the source is known, it is given, but often these things make the rounds between writers and editors who, all too often, find them in their work. And so it is here; they are offered to writers and editors, and anyone else desperate for some laughs at the expense of the English language – a light-hearted break from the serious stuff of “getting it right.”
• There’s no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. • English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. • We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. • And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, two geese? One moose, two meese? One rooster, two reester? • Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you would “comb through the annals of history” but never through a single annal? • If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? • If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? • In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways? • Have you ever run into someone who was dis-combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who are spring chickens, or who would actually hurt a fly? • English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn’t a race at all). • That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when you wind up your watch, you start it, but when you wind up your book, you end it!
1. Artery – the study of paintings 2. Barium – what doctors do with their fatal mistakes 3. Cauterize – made eye contact with her 4. Dilate – to live long 5. Enema – not a friend 6. Fibula – a small lie 7. Impotent – distinguished, well known 8. Labour pain – getting hurt at work 9. Nitrates – cheaper than day rates 10. Outpatient – a person who has fainted 11. Recovery Room – place to do upholstery 12. Seizure – Roman emperor 13. Tablet – small table 14. Terminal illness – getting sick at the airport
• A good vacuum really sucks! • The third hand on a watch is called the second hand! • If a word is misspelled in the dictionary, how would you ever know? • Webster wrote the first dictionary, but where did he find the words? • “Slow down” and “slow up” mean the same thing! • “Fat chance” and “slim chance” mean the same thing! • “Tug” boats push barges! • Sports spectators sit in the “stands!” • “After dark” really comes after light! • “Expecting the unexpected” means the unexpected is expected! • A “wise man” and a “wise guy” are opposites! • “Overlook” and “oversee” are opposites! • If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting? • If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? • “Bra” is singular but “panties” is plural! • We put suits in “garment bags” and garments in suitcases!
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1. King Ozymandias of Assyria was short on cash after years of war with the Hittites. His last possession was the Star of the Euphrates, the most valuable diamond in the ancient world. Desperate, he went to Croesus, the pawnbroker, to ask for a loan. Croesus said, “I’ll give you 100,000 dinars for it.” “But I paid a million dinars for it,” the King protested. “I am the king!” Croesus replied, “When you wish to pawn a Star, it makes no difference who you are.” 2. William Tell and his family were avid bowlers. But the Swiss league records were destroyed in a fire... and so we’ll never know for whom the Tells bowled. 3. A man rushed into a busy doctor’s office: “Doctor! I’m shrinking!” The doctor calmly responded, “Now, settle down. You’ll just have to be a little patient.” 4. A marine biologist developed genetically engineered dolphins that could live forever when fed a steady diet of seagulls. One day, the seagull supply ran out, so he had to go out and trap some more. On the way back, he saw two lions asleep on the road; he gingerly stepped over them. He was soon arrested and charged with... transporting gulls across sedate lions for immortal porpoises. 5. A thief stole all the toilets and urinals from the local police station, leaving no clues. An officer told the media, “We have absolutely nothing to go on.” 6. A tribal chief was sick so he summoned the medicine man, who took out a long, thin strip of elk rawhide and gave it to the chief, telling him to bite off, chew, and swallow one inch of the leather every day. After a month, the medicine man returned to see how the chief was feeling. The chief shrugged and said, “The thong is ended, but the malady lingers on.” 7. A famous Viking explorer returned home from a voyage and found his name missing from the town register. After complaining, the local civic official apologized profusely, “I must have taken Leif off my census.” 8. Three young squaws – one slept on a deer skin, one on an elk skin, and the third slept on a hippopotamus skin. All three became pregnant. The first two each had a baby boy. The one who slept on the hippopotamus skin had twin boys. This just goes to prove that... the squaw of the hippopotamus is equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides. 9. An anthropologist was cataloguing South American folk remedies. A tribal leader indicated that the leaves of a particular fern were a sure cure for constipation. When the anthropologist expressed his doubts, the man said, “With fronds like these, you don’t need enemas.”
“Coffee tax collection costs dwarf revenue” (Is “dwarf” a noun, or a verb here??) “One-armed man applauds the kindness of strangers” (With one arm, that must have been a challenge!) “Toronto newspaper runs photo of man’s goods” (Really??)
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