Subordinating Puns

Subordinate clause

An overworked elf walks into a bar the day before Christmas and orders a beer. "Hey look everyone! It's an elf!" the bartender exclaims. "I'm sorry, but that phrase is now insensitive and politically incorrect," the elf says. "We prefer to be called subordinate clauses."

Subordinate Clauses

I'm the main Claus and he's my subordinate Claus.

Subordinate clauses.

Kernel

subordinate clauses!

What did members of the Politburo wear to keep cool in the summer?

A: Lenin suits

What did the Soviet General Secretary say when he slipped and fell on ice in front of the Kremlin?

A: That'll leave a Marx!

What did the Commissar say to the workers on the collective farm when they slacked off?

A: Stop Stalin and get to work!

What did the Chinese President say when he stubbed his toe?

A: Mao! That hurts!

An officer in the Iranian army is talking to a subordinate.

The officer says, "Private, I think it's gonna rain."

The private says, "You think so, sir? The sky is completely clear and the sun is shining."

20 minutes later it starts to rain, a total deluge ensues.

The private says, "That was an amazing prediction, sir!. It did rain!"

The officer looks at the private, pats him on the shoulder and says, "Private, Ayatollah you so."

A subordinate claus!

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

Me: We have a short deadline, will you please help ensure this gets done on time for our client?

Subordinate: Alright, GenAric, I am going to be rushin' to get this done.

Me: Well, you can be Russian... I prefer to stay American.

Subordinate: Did I just get dad joked?

Me: grin

What do you call Santa's little helpers?

Subordinate Clauses.

Subordinate clauses

Subordinate Clauses! Merry Christmas

Subordinate clauses.