Because language is naturally playful, we human beings love to make jokes about words. Here, in order of length, are a dozen of my favorite verbal tour de farces:
• Bad spellers of the world, untie!
• Every time you make a typo, the errorists win.
• The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.
• Have you heard about the cat who ate some cheese, breathed into a mouse hole and waited with baited breath?
• Have you heard about the dyslexic, agnostic insomniac? He stayed up all night tossing and turning, wondering if there was a dog.
• The AP style guide is now accepting over in place of more than. A number of grammar purists have riposted, “More than my dead body!”
• I am fluent in French, Russian, Italian, thousand island, vinaigrette, ranch, gorgonzola, balsamic, green goddess and honey mustard. I also speak Esperanto like a native.
• My girlfriend texted me: “Your adorable.” I replied: “No, YOU’RE adorable.”
Now she’s crazy about me — and I haven’t the heart to tell her that I was just pointing out her typo.
• Those who strive to impugn the reputation of the former governor of Alaska and Republican candidate for vice president are out to HARASS SARAH. That’s not just a palindrome. It’s a Palin drome!
• Saint Peter hears a knocking at the gates of Heaven and calls out, “Who’s there?”
“It is I,” a voice responds.
“Good,” says Saint Peter. “That must be another English teacher.”
• My wife was in labor with our first child. Things were going pretty well when suddenly she began shouting, “Can’t! Don’t! Won’t! Shouldn’t! Wouldn’t! Couldn’t!”
“Doctor, what’s wrong with my wife?” I cried.
“It’s perfectly normal,” he assured me. “She’s having contractions.”
• A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. “In English,” he proclaimed, “a double negative forms a positive. In some languages though, such as Russian and Spanish, a double negative is still a negative.”
“However,” he pointed out, “there is no language in which a double positive can form a negative.”
A voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah, right.”
Please send your questions and comments about language to richard.lederer@utsandiego.com