When I applied to Cambridge, they kept asking what noise an owl makes.

It's who, you know.

πŸ‘︎ 6
πŸ’¬︎
πŸ‘€︎ u/Hegemon_Alexander
πŸ“…︎ Jul 08 2018
🚨︎ report
I thought the Royal Family weren’t supposed to have political alignments

... but the news tells me that the Duchess of Cambridge is in Labour.

πŸ‘︎ 23
πŸ’¬︎
πŸ‘€︎ u/alxhix
πŸ“…︎ Apr 23 2018
🚨︎ report
Puns of Varying Quality on the Subject of Linguistics (created in a fit of procrastinative inspiration) some of which I thought someone, someday might appreciate.

Note: Quality Very Varying (I see what I did there) and sometimes subject to specialist knowledge. So I apologise in advance. Shame me with your better puns.

While I was languishing in the Language Centre, doing some semantics antics and considering how all the other linguistics students despised and derided me, I was accosted by a stout man with large glasses who made me a preposition. It was that I should collect terrible puns, to do with linguistics, in order to ingratiate myself yet further with the other linguistics students (including even the phonetics fanatics).

I'm struggling to think of a pun to do with grammaticality that both makes sense and "Is grandma tickly?" correct. I'm also stuck on 'morphologician'. (I'm not actually sure that's a particularly logical word for the subject, though I guess that's more for, er, more for a logician to worry about.)

The problem I have with writing about phonological variation is that one is constantly forced to choose between being fun or logical - very Asian!I always get in trouble with electricians, they think I'm calling them a 'dialectician' whereas in fact I'm just saying "Die, electrician."

I like pscycholinguistics – the only department of linguistics where it’s acceptable to wear a cycle helmet. My Australian accent is terrible but I like to think my Sath Efrican one is predicate. My favourite accent is Received Pronunciation, because it is the accent chiefly used by invisible Japanese people who are ordered online. When the first recipient of an invisible Japanese person got the parcel, they wrote a complaint saying "Received but can't see Asian" and the name stuck.

Why did the speakers whose native languages weren't English, but whose only shared language was English, but they weren't very good at it and kept on having to stop to think about it, stop talking to one another? They came to an agreement. (Get it? If not, write your answer on a pastecard and paste it to the below address.)

What did the 'a' say to the 'the'? "You definitely are ticklish, 'the'!"

Why was the small man eaten by the large bear, which was proportionately bigger than him? It had, er, relative claws.

I think the reason there are so many speakers of Russian is because they all partake in an activity called "copulae shun". (Ok, ok, I know, that was Pushkin it.)

I know a man called Hillary who can, might, should, did, must, shall and will ride an ox. We call him "Ox Hillary".

I always think the verb 'to be' in the senten

... keep reading on reddit ➑

πŸ‘︎ 5
πŸ’¬︎
πŸ‘€︎ u/kieuk
πŸ“…︎ Nov 28 2011
🚨︎ report
Street names

I'll never forget when I was riding shotgun while my dad drove, and we were taking my friend Joe home. We had driven these streets hundreds of times, but at this moment, my dad released all these heretofore unheard-of puns.

We took a right on Cambridge Ave.

Dad looks over and stoically says in a gravelly voice with an -- American Indian?? -- accent, "First came iron horse… then came bridge."

Groans.

As we approach Minot Ln., he asks "do I turn here?" and Joe says "yes," to which dad replies "I don't know, Joe, I might, but I minot!"

Groans.

Finally, we make our last turn onto Cheyenne. Dad says with a deliberate, measured cadence, "You know, growing up, all the girls I met were so forward. It was weird. But then I met Shy Anne."

He finished his sentence right as we pulled into Joe's driveway. He put his right hand on the back of my headrest and turned to face us with a wide smile and the glittering, eyes of a puppy that just fetched on command.

Joe said "Thanks, Mr. Smith," and he got out and ran into his house.

πŸ‘︎ 6
πŸ’¬︎
πŸ‘€︎ u/doc_ids
πŸ“…︎ Aug 14 2014
🚨︎ report
Dad joked Sister-in-law

Walking through Cambridge:

Sister-in-law:"I want to know where the lions are!"

Me (Dad): "Lions?"

S-I-L:"Yes, this place is called Lion Yard, where are the lions? "

Me: "I think they might be lion about that..." πŸ˜†

S-I-L:πŸ˜‘

πŸ‘︎ 3
πŸ’¬︎
πŸ‘€︎ u/SquiffSquiff
πŸ“…︎ Aug 25 2014
🚨︎ report

Please note that this site uses cookies to personalise content and adverts, to provide social media features, and to analyse web traffic. Click here for more information.