Someone Has to Die Puns

Back in the before times, when sit-down restaurants existed, I used to order boneless cheese sticks and would just throw the word "boneless" in front of any appetizer with 100% corniness. The purpose of this isn't to make a good joke. It's not a good joke. The purpose is to make my dining companions catch some cringe splash damage and want to crawl into a hole and die out of embarrassment for my being horribly corny.

But there is a real, deeper purpose that I've discovered entirely by accident. People, especially young people, are so self-conscious and worried about saying or doing something embarrassing that it taints a lot of social gatherings. They go to a restaurant and are afraid to speak up even when their order is blatantly wrong. They'll tip well even when the food took an hour to arrive and the server has disappeared into the corn stalks behind a baseball field. It takes 2 hours of hanging out together before some friends finally stop nitpicking themselves, uncomfortable in their own bodies and brains, feeling perpetually judged, and begin to relax. These are the kinds of people who go to sleep every night replaying cringey moments from high school. Their last thought of the day is when the Burger King girl said, "Enjoy your meal!" and they said, "Thanks, you too."

It takes 2 hours and/or a lot of booze before they're comfortable enough to take conversational risks and truly reveal themselves. But if I come right out of the gate with a really dumb joke, then we can cut to the chase. There's less danger because someone in the group already shot themselves in the foot, right off the bat. They pulled a pin on the cringe grenade and then jumped on it.

You cringe at my dumb joke and then we're over the hump. Someone has already done something pretty stupid, so go ahead and order the hubcap of nachos and a massive chocolate shake because nobody is going to judge you poorly while they're all judging me.

In terms of price negotiations (haggling), there is a psychological concept called "anchoring". You throw out the first number and all subsequent numbers are compared to that number. This is the same idea. We've already set the humor standard pretty low at "boneless cheese sticks", so you can say the dumbest shit you want and, as long as it's not worse than my cheesy joke, it won't matter.

This is why, when you were a teenager and your dad took you and some friends out, your dad made corny jokes. He knew they were corny jokes. You and your friends un

This has been my favourite joke for at least a couple years now.

A man drives train in Bulgaria. One day, he falls asleep driving, and runs over someone walking on the tracks. Well, his case goes to court, and he gets the death sentence for murder. So, he's on death row and the executioner approaches him.

"What would you like for your last meal?"

"I would like a banana please."

The executioner thinks it's weird, but shrugs and gives him a banana. The guy eats his banana, waits awhile, and gets strapped into the electric chair. When the flip the switch, nothing happens! In Bulgaria, an act of divine intervention means you get released.

A few months go by, and the train driver has been working for a new company. Well, old habits die hard, and he falls asleep again, killing 2 people this time. The court has no patience for recklessness, so he ends up on death row again. After awhile, the same executioner from last time approaches him.

"You again? Shit. What do you want this time?"

"Two bananas please."

The executioner shrugs and hands him two bananas. A bit weird, but whatever. There's no way he can cheat death twice! But, when they flip the switch, nothing happens again. The train driver walks a second time.

Some time passes, and the executioner is very busy. After another few months, the same dude shows up, apparently having run over 3 people with a train. Exacberated, the executioner approaches him for the third time.

"Let me guess. Three bananas?"

"Actually yes! How did you know?"

"Top bad! This has gone on long enough. No more bananas! Today you fry."

So, the train driver gets strapped into the chair with no last meal. But, when they flip the switch, nothing happens again.

"I dont get it," says the executioner. "I didnt let you eat any bananas!"

"Its not the bananas. I'm a bad conductor."

Edit: Thanks for the Gold stranger! Edit: And Silver!

I mentioned that they used slaves and criminals, since they would have a hard time getting actors to play the part of someone that actually dies, and my dad disagreed.

He said: No, people were dying to have that job.

Sorry if something like this has already been posted.

My boss is a good guy and a good boss, but he always says the same 5 or so jokes (he has two young kids). Anytime he pulls up to a job that we've been working on its "you aren't done yet?" or its "great job, but why are they upside down". Every time someone walks up to a job they get a loud "shhhh, here they come". I can go on and on, he has comedy routines for almost every situation.

So that's what I have to deal with.

Last weekend he took a mini-vacation, and brought me back a bottle of hot sauce (I'm something of a heatseeker) and the bottle was layer with all sorts of sexual innuendo that it'll get you hard and great at sex.

The other day I send him a text message around lunch time that only said "I have to go to the emergency room." Not 30 seconds pass and I get a phone call from him.

Boss: "What happened?"

Me: "Well, this morning I put some of that hot sauce you gave me on my eggs, and I've had an erection lasting more than four hours."

Boss: dryly "Ha. Ha. Haaa."

Meanwhile my coworker is dying of laughter and I'm trying to keep it together.

I've told everyone about this the past couple days.

There once was a man who had a job driving a passenger train between two large towns. It could be a very dull job to some, but as the old saying goes, one man's trash is another's gold; he wanted to be a railroad man since he was a boy.

He was a wiz behind the controls of the train, and commanded the 15 car vehicle effortlessly as if he had been born to do the job. He prided himself on the fact that he could bend the rules and speed through curves and grades that made other motormen shiver and back off.

One day however, he wasn't so lucky and came round a bend too fast and derailed his train. He backed off the throttle and braked as much as he could, managing to only have one fatality out of 500 passengers on his train.

Months later there was a trial and he was found guilty of manslaughter in the highest degree, a capital offence in that land, and sentenced to die by electric chair. Punishment came swift, unlike most places, and 3 days after sentencing the former railroader was asked for his last meal.

"I'll have a banana," "Just a single banana?" said the perplexed guard. "The warden will grant you a feast and all you want is that?"

"Just a single banana." he said.

After he downed the fruit, he was strapped into the electric chair an hour later.... The warden hit the switch, lights flickered, and the crackle of electricity could be heard for over a minute...

...but our train jockey instead rose from the chair looking more like he got a stiff massage, rather than be put to death! Well in that nation, the law of the land states that if a man somehow survives being put to death, they must be set free...

...And so it came to pass that our engineer was let go...

And for whatever reason, he got his job back!

So he was back railroading again doing the job that he loved. You'd think he'd have been more cautious with this second chance he'd been given, but you'd also be wrong. Speedy Gonzales with a train license decided to gun his locomotive to hard and send it off the tracks again!

Of course, this time he was tried for the same crime, but at a different time (his was a fair commonwealth and double indemnity was simply unheard of!) So fair was their nation, that the jury came up with the same judgement and punishment. So three days later, when asked for his last meal, the engineer simply said "I'll have 2 bananas..."

Not less than 60 minutes after consuming the last morsel was he strapped into the chair and the switch thrown... And....

NOTHING.

So we're in the car driving to the airport and my dad's talking about his buddy Terry. Terry was in some small movie and my dad was commenting that he played both the referee in a footy game, and then it cut to a shot of the crowd and THERE WAS TERRY. My dad goes "I mean, he could have at least put a different shirt on to create the illusion he was someone else. How silly of him!"

My sister says "You should be real careful dad, you shouldn't make fun of him. You can die from dissin' Terry"

Cue groans and laughter, and my dad conceding the apprentice has surpassed the master.

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

"Philogelos" or "The Laughter Lover" is a collection of 265 ancient Roman jokes, written in the 4th century AD. Some of them feel... very appropriate for this sub:

• A boy caught sight of a deep well on his country-estate, and asked if the water was any good. The farmhands assured him that it was good, and that his own parents used to drink from that well. The boy expressed his amazement: "How long were their necks, if they could drink from something so deep!"

• When a boy was told by someone, "Your beard is now coming in," he went to the rear-entrance and waited for it.

• A boy checked in on the parents of a dead classmate. The father was wailing: "O son, you have left me a cripple!" The mother was crying: "O son, you have taken the light from my eyes!" Later, the boy suggested to his friends: "Well, if he were guilty of all that, he probably deserved to die!"

• A boy came to check in on a friend who was seriously ill. When the man's wife said that he had 'departed', the intellectual replied: "When he arrives back, will you tell him that I stopped by?"

• A boy had been at a wedding-reception. As he was leaving, he said: "What a wonderful ceremony! I pray that your next marriages are as enjoyable as this one."

• A man met his friend in the street, who said: "Congratulations! I hear that you've got a new baby boy!" The man replied: "Indeed, but I'm still trying to find the father!"

• A man saw a eunuch talking with a woman and asked him if she was his wife. When he replied that eunuchs can't have wives, the man asked: "So is she your daughter?"

• A man was being heckled by a friend: "I had your wife, without paying a dime!" The man replied: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?'

• An incompetent schoolteacher was asked who the mother of Priam was. Not knowing the answer, he said: "Well, I suppose it's polite to call her Ma'am."

• A man, just back from a trip abroad, went to an incompetent fortune-teller. He asked about his family, and the fortune-teller replied: "Everyone is fine, especially your father." When the man objected that his father had been dead for ten years, the reply came: "Ah, then you must have no clue who your real father is!"

• A misogynist paid his last respects at the tomb of his dead wife. When someone asked him, "Who has gone to rest?," he replied: "Me, at last!"

You can find more here and [here](http://publishing.y

This has been my favorite joke for at least a couple years now.

A man drives train in Bulgaria. One day, he falls asleep driving, and runs over someone walking on the tracks. Well, his case goes to court, and he gets the death sentence for murder. So, he's on death row and the executioner approaches him.

"What would you like for your last meal?"

"I would like a banana please."

The executioner thinks it's weird, but shrugs and gives him a banana. The guy eats his banana, waits awhile, and gets strapped into the electric chair. When the flip the switch, nothing happens! In Bulgaria, an act of divine intervention means you get released.

A few months go by, and the train driver has been working for a new company. Well, old habits die hard, and he falls asleep again, killing 2 people this time. The court has no patience for recklessness, so he ends up on death row again. After awhile, the same executioner from last time approaches him.

"You again? Shit. What do you want this time?"

"Two bananas please."

The executioner shrugs and hands him two bananas. A bit weird, but whatever. There's no way he can cheat death twice! But, when they flip the switch, nothing happens again. The train driver walks a second time.

Some time passes, and the executioner is very busy. After another few months, the same dude shows up, apparently having run over 3 people with a train. Exacerbated, the executioner approaches him for the third time.

"Let me guess. Three bananas?"

"Actually yes! How did you know?"

"Top bad! This has gone on long enough. No more bananas! Today you fry."

So, the train driver gets strapped into the chair with no last meal. But, when they flip the switch, nothing happens again.

"I don't get it," says the executioner. "I didn't let you eat any bananas!"

"Its not the bananas. I'm a bad conductor."

Edit 1: Thanks for my first gold /u/Lhjnhnas!!!

Okay, so this has been my favorite joke for at least a couple years now.

A man drives train in Bulgaria. One day, he falls asleep driving, and runs over someone walking on the tracks. Well, his case goes to court, and he gets the death sentence for murder. So, he's on death row and the executioner approaches him.

"What would you like for your last meal?"

"I would like a banana please."

The executioner thinks it's weird, but shrugs and gives him a banana. The guy eats his banana, waits awhile, and gets strapped into the electric chair. When the flip the switch, nothing happens! In Bulgaria, an act of divine intervention means you get released.

A few months go by, and the train driver has been working for a new company. Well, old habits die hard, and he falls asleep again, killing 2 people this time. The court has no patience for recklessness, so he ends up on death row again. After awhile, the same executioner from last time approaches him.

"You again? Shit. What do you want this time?"

"Two bananas please."

The executioner shrugs and hands him two bananas. A bit weird, but whatever. There's no way he can cheat death twice! But, when they flip the switch, nothing happens again. The train driver walks a second time.

Some time passes, and the executioner is very busy. After another few months, the same dude shows up, apparently having run over 3 people with a train. Exacerbated, the executioner approaches him for the third time.

"Let me guess. Three bananas?"

"Actually yes! How did you know?"

"Top bad! This has gone on long enough. No more bananas! Today you fry."

So, the train driver gets strapped into the chair with no last meal. But, when they flip the switch, nothing happens again.

"I don't get it," says the executioner. "I didn't let you eat any bananas!"

"Its not the bananas. I'm a bad conductor."