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

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πŸ‘€︎ u/kieuk
πŸ“…︎ Nov 28 2011
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3 4 5

Context:

  • I currently live and study in the Philippines

  • One Philippine Peso (β‚±) is approximately 1/40 a dollar. Go check the conversion ratio if you doubt.

  • A single stick of this choco wafer stick right here (called Stick-O) usually costs at about β‚±1

  • I study in a college where student organizations are prevalent and their means of collecting funds is by Fund Raising Activity, i.e., selling consumables to students (usually food at exorbitant retail prices)


Every single time when I see an organization member doing his/her FRA selling Stick-O's, I ask...

Me: How much is that?

FRA: Three for five.

Me: β‚±3 for 5 pieces?

They chuckle in shame. They then correct me:

FRA: No, 3 pieces for β‚±5 pesos

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πŸ‘€︎ u/francis_0000a
πŸ“…︎ Nov 16 2014
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Rugby dad

At my daughter's university yesterday for a summer preview day. In a parent 's session on student activities, we were talking about the rugby clubs when one of the dads remarks, "Is it true that the coach of the women's rugby team is named Eleanor. You know, Eleanor Rugby."

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πŸ‘€︎ u/anyeyeball
πŸ“…︎ Jun 23 2015
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Teacher hit us with this one today

we were doing an activity in the book, and someone couldn't find the one we were practicing. Conversation went as follows:
Student: wait, where are we?
Teacher: in class.

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πŸ‘€︎ u/onasill
πŸ“…︎ Feb 11 2015
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