With Full Force Puns

Trevor loved tractors. And I mean, really loved tractors. Forget any obsessions or high-level interests you may have, chances are they pale in the face of Trevor’s love for tractors.

Every day Trevor would get up, in his tractor-themed bedroom in his tractor-themed house, with its tractor-themed wallpaper and tractor-themed carpets, and he would make his bed with its tractor-themed duvet and tractor-themed sheets. He would go downstairs in his tractor-themed pajamas into his tractor-themed kitchen, with its tractor-themed tiles and cupboards, and he would eat his breakfast while perusing the latest tractor-themed magazine or annual.

Trevors’s degree in Agricultural Engineering hung on his living room wall, along with a copy of his thesis, which centred around (you guessed it) tractors. The living room was decorated with all sorts of tractor-related trinkets, including die-cast models, paintings and drawings.

The hedges in Trevor’s front garden were trimmed in the shape of tractors. His lawn was vividly decorated with tractor-driving garden gnomes, and his garden furniture was constructed from various parts from vintage tractor designs.

Trevor just had one thing missing from his otherwise tractor-centric life; he had never actually owned, nor driven, a real tractor.

Not for his lack of trying, of course. Trevor had been to many tractor shows over the years, and visited many farms with friends of his, but none of the tractors he had seen had ever been quite right. Trevor was so knowledgeable about tractors that every single one he had come across had possessed some hidden trait that he wasn’t keen on. His first experience of driving a real tractor had to be perfect.

One day, Trevor was flicking through one of his favourite publications, Powertrain Quarterly, when there was a knock at the door. Trevor answered, and it was his friend and fellow tractor enthusiast, Jeff.

Trevor welcomed Jeff in, and over tea and crumpets served on tractor-themed crockery, they discussed the merits of aluminium drawbars and front-end loaders. Eventually Trevor pressed Jeff to explain the reason for his visit.

“Well” said Jeff, “As I’m sure you know the convention comes to town later”.

The convention. Trevor had been thinking of little else the past three weeks. The neighbouring town annually threw a convention for farmers, particularly farmyard machinery. There would be combine harvesters, lawnmowers, and of course, tractors.

“Yes of course” replied Trevor

A Call to Arms A Plead to the Limbless

The Armless are a stump among society and could easily achieve more. It’s bothersome that somebody with great potential could allow themselves to lose grip of what they aspire for. The radius of support and development that surrounds these people is astounding. Yet they bite the hand that feeds and throw away opportunities. With each passing day they are crippled by the errors in their ways. Not only are they not properly handling the situation, they are doing a disservice to society. Most will say to refrain from pointing fingers, but it is pertinent that we show them their faults.
All aside we should most certainly not try to elbow my way into their lives. However, if they were to branch off into their own progressive groups it would be most beneficial. And severance is a good thing between them and the public. This doesn't mean a complete amputation of them from society. Perhaps selective assistance will help these people find a well fitted sleeve within their communities. This process is difficult and lending a helping hand can make the difference. On the other hand, we have those who don’t try to succeed. Their negligence is worthy of more than a mere slap on the wrist. When somebody refuses to apply themselves, they are holding back progress. By giving themselves mental limitation they are creating a prosthetic disability they must abide by. The majority of working to achieve goals is believing you can reach out and grab them. But, somebody who gives up is cutting themselves short of success Seeing somebody give up is the furthest thing from being humerus. Urging these people is a necessity, otherwise they will never try their hardest, encourage them to use some elbow grease and put forth full effort. Any small contribution is better than being a detriment, community service, obtaining greater education, enlisting in the armed forces, these all benefit society. Drastic changes of this scale are sure to cause discontent, grab a tissue if need be, but never give up. For all those that are currently wasting away without contribution, it's time to limb’er up and take charge.

So in France in the 1500s there was an old tall church, and recently, the man who rings the bells grew sick and died. So the priest decided to hold interview for the job of the bell ringer. Nobody showed up but one man, he was a tall, strong looking man, but he had no arms. The priest, not wanting to turn anyone away, gave the man an interview, he seemed qualified but the priest didn't know how he would ring the bell, so he said no "Oh please father let me do it I'll prove myself, oh it'll be the best you've ever seen" the priest decided to give him a chance, they went up the winding stairs for a while till they reached the top. The man looked at the massive bell, but with excitement not fear, he was to ring the bell 5 times. He stepped back and ran full speed hitting his face to the bell, BANG. He stepped back, a bit shook up, but he shook it off and ran at the bell again, once again with his face, BANG. He did that two more times, then after the forth time He stepped back for the grand finale. He ran full speed and smashed the bell with such force it could be heard towns over, but with the force he was knocked back over the threshold and put if the tower to his death the priest ran full speed down the stairs to find a crowd around the mangled body of the of the armless man, a man walked over the priest and said "father who was this man who fell from the tower" to which the priest replied "I never caught his name but his face rings a bell".

There's a church in the country that is looking for a bell ringer for church on Sundays. A guy comes in for the job but he has no arms. The priest says "How are you going to ring the bell with no arms?"

"Come up in the bell tower with me and I'll show you."

The priest figures he'll humor him so when they get up there the backs all the way up to one side and runs full force into the side of the bell sending a "BONG" across the valley. The priest is so impressed he hires him. That Sunday the time comes and our bell ringer is all ready, backed into the corner. Runs full force and slips at the last minute falling to his death 100 feet below. A detective comes to investigate so the priest tells him the whole story. "We have to notify his next of kin, do you know his name?"

"No, but his face rings a bell."

The church now has to replace this guy so another guy comes in and coincidence of coincidences, he has no arms either. Same method of ringing the bell. Same accident. "Do you know his name?"

"No, but he's a dead ringer for the other guy."

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