For All Intensive Purposes

RainaProske

Funny English, whether you post English errors, odd English words, photos of signs in English that are funny, English word play -- whatever -- just please keep it clean, like you wouldn't mind if your 6-year-old child read it to the class in front of the teacher on the first day of school.

Examples:

I took what she said for granite.

About someone's bedroom:
"My bed has three blankets
and a large guilt my parents gave me."

About a lovely couple:
"I have something to tell you.
My girlfriend and I got enraged last night!"

A sign:
PRIVATE CUSTOMER
PARKING ONLY
ALL OTHERS
WILL BE TOAD

And a quotation from Richard Lederer:
“Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is 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. . . ."

RainaProske

Interesting English word with an uninteresting definition:
Adoxography: killed writing on an unimportant subject

Jruzer

One that always gets me riled is the use of "of" instead of "have" in what I have just learned is the conditional perfect tense. This happens most often with the contraction:

Right: "I should've done that."
Tooth-grindingly wrong: "I should of done that."

Hornsby

Oldie but goodie.

RainaProske

Funniest book ever:

jenjencin78

RainaProske

"I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." --President John Kennedy, at a dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners of the Western Hemisphere, the White House, April 29, 1962

"I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy: "Dear Jack, Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide."' --President John Kennedy

"Just think what my margin might have been if I had never left home at all." --President John Kennedy, commenting on the fact that he had campaigned hard in Alaska and lost but won Hawaii handily without visiting it

"Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House." –President John Kennedy

RainaProske

^^^ I put that in the wrong thread!

lalee115

I used to be a 9-1-1 operator, and I took a call one time for an ambulance where the caller told me that the patient had recently been in the hospital, where she "was innovated". Took me a few to realize he meant "intubated".

Also heard on the radio once when I was in high school a lady call in to talk about some various issue. The DJ said something along the lines of, "So, you live in a residential area..." and the lady interrupts, "This ain't no residential neighborhood! Peoples live here!" Still not entirely sure what she thought "residential" meant.

RainaProske

A very old joke:
An old preacher couldn't read, so he had a reader come up on the podium to read the Scriptures. As it turns out, he couldn't hear very well either.

Reader: "Moses made an ointment for the sins of the people."
Preacher: "Moses made an ointment for the shins of the people."
Reader: You fool -- you spoiled it all.
Preacher: "And some fool spilled it all."

sohifirefly

Can you be a little more pacific in what you're looking for in this thread?

RainaProske

Well, I'd try, but I have old timer's disease. This is, after all, a doggy dog world.

RainaProske

I have carpool tunnel syndrome. There's no excaping it, expecially since I have to crank the wheel so sharply to get into the expresso line on the way to work, cause everyone wants coffee.