Another fun e-mail that made my cat-like mind feel like it was high on catnip...
- Can you cry under water?
- If money doesn't grow on trees then why do banks have branches?
- Since bread is square, then why is sandwich meat round?
- Why do you have to "put your two cents in".. . but it's only a "penny for your thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going?
- Why does a round pizza come in a square box?
- What disease did cured ham actually have?
- How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?
- Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby" when babies wake up like every two hours?
- If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?
- If you drink Pepsi at work in the Coke factory, will they fire you?
- Why are you IN a movie, but you're ON TV?
- Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?
- How come we choose from just two people for President and fifty for Miss America?
- Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They're going to see you naked anyway.
- If a 911 operator has a heart attack, whom does he/she call?
- Why is "bra" singular and "panties" plural?
- Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet soup?
- Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out!"
- Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
- Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?
- When your photo is taken for your driver's license, why do they tell you to smile? If you are stopped by the police and asked for your license, are you going to be smiling?
- If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a stupid song about him?
- If the professor on Gilligan's Island can make a radio out of a coconut, why can't he fix a hole in a boat?
- Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don't point to their crotch when they ask where the bathroom is?
- Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They're both dogs!
- What do you call male ballerinas?
- If Wyle E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME stuff, why didn't he just buy dinner?
- If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?
- If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
- Is Disney World the only people trap operated by a mouse?
- Do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?
- Why did you just try singing the two songs above?
- Why do they call it an asteroid when it's outside the hemisphere, but call it a hemorrhoid when it's in your butt?
- Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?
- Do you ever wonder why you gave me your e-mail address in the first place?
April 20, 2007
April 11, 2007
Can You Read These Correctly, The First Time? And Other Fun Language Puzzlers
Another fun e-mail. I'm a sucker for word play, and this tickled my verbal funny bone (yes, I do have one. Don't you?!)
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
- There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger.
- There is neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
- English muffins weren't invented in England, nor 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
...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?
- if one goose, 2 geese, why not one moose, 2 meese? And what's up with one index, 2 indices?
Doesn't it seem crazy that...
...you can make amends but not one amend?
...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?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
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?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which...
...your house can burn up as it burns down
...you fill in a form by filling it out
...an alarm goes off by going on
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
P.S. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick”?
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
- There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger.
- There is neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
- English muffins weren't invented in England, nor 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
...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?
- if one goose, 2 geese, why not one moose, 2 meese? And what's up with one index, 2 indices?
Doesn't it seem crazy that...
...you can make amends but not one amend?
...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?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
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?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which...
...your house can burn up as it burns down
...you fill in a form by filling it out
...an alarm goes off by going on
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
P.S. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick”?
April 4, 2007
Funny E-mail: High School Metaphors
Cherie's note: I have no idea where this originated, because I received it in an e-mail. But I was laughing so much by the end of it, I just had to share it so it'll quit rolling around in my brain causing me to break out in snickers in the most awkward places...
Every year, English teachers from across the USA can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's [2006?] winners:
1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was room temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
~ end ~
Every year, English teachers from across the USA can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's [2006?] winners:
1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was room temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
~ end ~
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