Generalized mean Puns

...but all brooms are pretty much the same.

By which I think he means that after some General Chaos, there's Major Disruptions making working there like Corporal Punishment

"Are you having a crisis?"

In Arabic, there are two firms: formal and colloquial. In the formal form, generally when you want to ask someone how they're doing you say "Kayf al-haal" which means "How is the state of being?" Literally asking how they are. In Kuwaiti colloquial however you say "wishlonak" which means the same thing colloquially but literally means "What color are you?"

My friend calls me and says "wishlonak" and I immediately respond "Brown!" And then burst out laughing at my own cleverness.

After typing it out I feel really lame

Back a few decades, I was working in a program with a local college in the Middle East.

The name of the program for ExPats has the clever acronym of "IDEA" (hey, I said it was clever); which stands for "Inter-Departmental Educational Adjunct". It's interdepartmental because my particular specialty not only covers field geology but also paleontology and a bit of archeology thrown in for good measure. Everyone hopes to have a good IDEA...

ahem...

Well, we saddle up and head for the Dune Sea out in the west of the country, where the Precambrian, Cambrian, Silurian, Cretaceous, Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene crop out and access is relatively easy and non-injurious.

Well, we caravan out, some 30 Land Cruisers, Nissan patrol, and the odd Mitsubishi Galloper strong. We all get our maps, compasses and split up into 5 or 6 special interest groups ("SIG's"); where each IDEA has his own GPS and LIDAR laser ranging apparatus. Reason being, that there are very few benchmarks out in the desert, and even those are constantly at the mercy of the shifting and ever-blowing sands.

Since we're split into groups and at any one time, ranging up to and including some 50 km2, when a real find is located, a device called the "DIME" (Digital-Interface Monitor Encoder) is attached and programmed into the GPS for location later; it is a digital sort of low-frequency transponder, developed from technology used by offshore drillers and jacket setters where benchmarks are even more transitory.

The way it works is rather simple. When something is to be marked for later retrieval, a series of wooden posts are pounded in a triangular manner around the find and the DIME is set, programmed with the GPS and attached to one or more of the posts.

That's the theory, at least.

Everything works well, especially all the hardened electronics and computer gizmos, but attaching the DIME to the stakes is the real problem. It can't be nailed, screwed or fastened with any sort of metal contrivance as that farkles the magnetic field and causes all sorts of goofy spurious signals. Zip ties don't last long in the heat and duct tape is right out. Many sites have been lost to the shifting sands this way.

Velcro doesn't work too well, as the sand fills the hooks of the receiving piece of velcro and soon renders it useless. String or fishing line work, but that's temporary (they melt). Glue or mastic are out as these are supposed to be temporary. Even plastic sleeves don't work due to the heat out

Man: "Yes!" Reporter: "Name?" Man: "Belly Jons." Reporter: "Sex?" Man: "Three to five times a week." Reporter: "No no! I mean male or female?" Man: "Yes, male, female... sometimes camel." Reporter: "Holy cow!" Man: "Yes, cow, sheep... animals in general." Reporter: "But isn't that hostile?" Man: "Yes, horse style, dog style, any style." Reporter: "Oh dear!" Man: "No, no deer. Deer run too fast. Hard to catch."

I mean, just generally speaking.

We were looking at alternative metals, and we both agreed that the meteorite ring was not only the coolest looking in general, but the fact that it came from space made it a clear winner.

Her: "Maybe I should get meteorite in my wedding band too so we can match."

Me: "So you know what this means? It means that our love is out of this world!"

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

My dad waited tables to pay his way through college, and he tells a story about one customer who'd made a scene upon entering the restaurant and seemed to be a dickhead generally.

(Guy sits down)

Dad: Welcome to (insert restaurant name), can I get you anything to start out? An appetizer?

Guy: Well, how's your cook?

Dad: Oh, he's great.

Guy: No. I mean how long's he been cooking?

Dad: About two... two and a half years. But he should be just about done by now.

The guy was pissed...

Was not impressed by their pork sandwich. Gave the chef my two cents' worth in generally negative feedback. The chef was so upset that I was never to dine here or any branch ever again. I mean, come on dude, all this over a sandwich – you didn't have to

Ban me.

Pic will be found in the comments below

Last night, as I was getting ready to cook dinner, I received a mysterious phone call from a number I didn't recognize and I naturally let it go to voicemail. Surprisingly the mystery caller did leave a voice message and several minutes later I got this text. To eliminate all possibilities I proceeded to listen to the voicemail and ensure it was indeed someone important to me. It was both of my parents(they like to put me on speakerphone so they can talk to me simultaneously) informing me of my Dad's new cellular device.

Now, as far as i can tell, my Dad has never sent a text msg in his life. He's been retired for 10+ years and he loves to talk on the phone to friends and loved ones for hours. He has no reason to text. I also wouldn't put him into a general category when it comes to dad jokes. Meaning he might not have enjoyed this as much as I. So, after much deliberation I decided to welcome my Dad to the world of SMS the only way I felt was appropriate to the relationship we share.

Also, one of my favorite of his sayings is referring to my best friend as suave(Ss-wave) and debonair (De-boner.)

Oh and don't let your meatloaf.