Us English Puns

I guess you can say it's an auto-biography.

He was very passive aggressive

So, she walks over and takes a seat next to him on the bench, turns to him and says, "Sorry to bother you. I know this may be a little forward but I would love to grab coffee with you some time."

Flattered, the man responds, "Sure... but what makes you so certain you and I would get along so well?"

"Well..." the woman says. "A couple things, actually. I noticed you were wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt. Iron Maiden are my favorite band of all time. When they went on their reunion tour in 1999, my parents took me to see them in Cleveland. I was 12 years old and it was the first concert I ever went to. I absolutely love Iron Maiden."

The man can't believe it.

"I saw them play Cleveland in '99! First concert I ever went to on my own. My best friend Jimmy Spitz and I told our parents we were sleeping at each others' houses, snuck out, took a bus into the city and saw them play at the Plain Dealer Pavillion!"

Naturally, they're both shocked.

"If that isn't weird enough..." says the woman. "I noticed you're reading Mark Twain. I was a communications major in university and I actually wrote my thesis on Mark Twain and how he used satire as a lens to comment on current events of the time, comparing him to satirical news sources of today. He's my favorite author."

Now the man is really taken aback, "Get out of here! I was an English major in university! I specialized in 19th century American literature and this is like my fourth or fifth time reading Tom Sawyer, I absolutely love Mark Twain."

They both can't believe it...this has got to be a match made in heaven.

"Ok..." the woman says. "Well, buckle up because here's the icing on the cake. I noticed you're eating a prune. Prunes are my absolute favorite fruit. When I was a kid, my grandfather lived on a farm. He had an orchard that mainly grew apples and some lemons, but he knew how much my sister and I loved prunes so he kept a couple of plum trees. Every year at the end of the summer, we'd go up and harvest the plums with him. He'd dry them and by the time we'd go back to his place for Thanksgiving he'd always have those prunes saved just for us. They're my favorite fruit! I love prunes, you're eating a prune, this has got to be fate. What do you say?"

The man puts down his fruit and responds,

"It's a date!"

Soo.. a little background: my mother was about to visit for a walk outside the next day when this dialogue happened; also: my native language is german and i don't know if this very common in english as well, but my daughter calls my mother <stgm_at's-mother-first-name>-gramma. for the sake of this post let's assume her name is elizabeth.

so here goes...

(i enter the living room; wife & daughter sitting on the couch)

daughter: (in a moderately excited voice) hey dad, you know who's going to visit us tomorrow?

me: (acting as if i didn't know) don't know, who?

daughter: elizabeth-gramma.

me: huh, really, but do you know who is also going to visit us?

(daughter looks at me even more excited, there was defenitely a twinkle in her eye; wife looks at me sceptical)

daughter: don't know, who?

me: my mum.

(cue rolling eyes and groan from my wife and laughter from my daughter)

After discovering he'd been given a parking ticket, the giant exclaimed in disappointment as he approached his house. This startled a burglar inside, causing him to flee from the property but not before trapping his stubby digit in the door, causing him to leave blood at the scene. Thankfully, the giant's powerful nasal abilities allowed him to aid police as he was able to detected the exact nationality and gender of the robber in question. When interviewed, the giant simplified the story for us by saying,

"Fee, Fie, Foe, Thumb, I smell the blood of an English Man."

She asked the pastor of a local church if he knew of any houses with rooms to rent that were close to town, but out in the country. The pastor kindly drove her out to see a house with a room to rent. She loved the house and decided to rent the room. Then, the lady returned to her home in England to make her final preparations to move to Switzerland.

When she arrived back home, the thought occurred to her that she had not seen a “W.C.” in the room or even down the hall. (A W.C. is short for “water closet” and is what the English call a toilet.) So she immediately emailed the pastor to ask him where the “W.C.” is located.

The Swiss pastor had never heard of a “W.C.,” and so he Googled the abbreviation and found an article titled “Wayside Chapels.” Thinking that the English lady was asking about a country church to attend near her new home, the pastor responded as follows:

Ms. Smith,

I look forward to your move. Regarding your question about the location of the W.C., the closest W.C. is situated only two miles from the room you have rented, in the center of a beautiful grove of pine trees. The W.C. has a maximum occupancy of 229 people, but not that many people usually go on weekdays. I suggest you plan to go on Thursday evenings when there is a sing-along. The acoustics are remarkable and the happy sounds of so many people echo throughout the W.C.

Sunday mornings are extremely crowded. The locals tend to arrive early and many bring their lunches to make a day of it. Those who arrive just in time can usually be squeezed into the W.C. before things start, but not always. Best to go early if you can!

It may interest you to know that my own daughter was married in the W.C. and it was there that she met her husband. I remember how everyone crowded in to sit close to the bride and groom. There were two people to a seat ordinarily occupied by one, but our friends and family were happy to share.  I will admit that my wife and I felt particularly relieved when it was over. We were truly wiped out.

Because of my responsibilities in town, I can’t go as often as I used to. In fact, I haven’t been in well over a year. I can tell you I really miss regularly going to the W.C. Let’s plan on going together for your first visit. I can reserve us seats where you will be seen by all.

Sincerely,

Pastor Kurt Meier

A carrot.

My English teacher is giving us daily dad jokes. My life is complete.

A man from Spain visiting the US walked into a clothes store. He said to the clerk, "Quiero comprar unos calcetines, por favor." Unfortunately, the clerk didn't speak Spanish, and the Spaniard didn't speak English. They searched all around the store, the clerk pointing to various items, hoping to find what the foreign customer wanted.

He pointed at jackets, but the foreigner shook his head and said "No quiero chaquetas." Then he pointed at shirts, but the client was not satisfied and said "No quiero ni camisas." The clerk pointed at sweaters, pants, shoes... but the Spaniard said he didn't want "ni sudaderas, ni pantalones, ni zapatos...".

They couldn't come across the item the shopper needed. Finally, the clerk points to a table of socks, and the man from Spain exclaimed with joy, "¡Eso sí que es!" The clerk exploded in anger, shouting "If you could spell it, why didn't you say it before?!"

A minimum.

*Applies to Aus, NZ, and Canada too. Basically if you're not from the US and live in an English speaking country.

My wife and I were hanging out in our room when the cat walked in. I looked at it and told her to give us some privacy, and she left. I said to my wife "oh shit, she knows English! She's a spy!" My wife goes "yeah, I think she's a plant." Without thinking, I replied "nope, she's a cat." Now my wife refuses to acknowledge me when I talk. Worth it.

edit: derp typo

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

Waiter comes in with his bad English and asks "Finnish?" My dad replies "no, Danish" and points at us!

Eating at IHOP with my lady, and like the mature adults we are, we're playing tabletop football with our sugar packets. The waitress, who happens to have a Poppins-esque English accent, comes by to let us know our food will be up shortly, then says, "If you get really good, one day you might be in the sugar bowl." I have been satisfied for the rest of the day.

Guide: (broken english) "There is a lot of grass in this area because...[good reason]."

Dad: (to me, but loud enough for everyone to hear) "You know what the locals call that...?"

Me: "No, what?"

Dad: "Muchas gracias!" (followed by the biggest grin I've ever seen)

Guide: (confused) "De nada..."

My family quickly and casually disassociates before seeing other families face palm for us.

I was the only one who laughed...

My aunt and uncle recently adopted an Ethiopian boy. His first night in the states, he had pizza off the kids menu at Olive Garden. It was a small personal pizza, with an obvious circle shape. Couple days later, had pizza at his new parents. It was cut into the triangular shape. He went to school for the last day of the semester just to see what it was like, and they had square pizza.

Not knowing what the shapes were called in English, he drew the shapes for us. When he told us it was square pizza, my dad yelled out "they're cutting corners!"