Yet More Corny Old Jokes

Lecturer: I found your book very difficult to understand.
Philosopher: Oh, THANK you!
(@RichardDawkins)

Philosopher: We have one solipsist in the department and he's elderly. We look out for him because, y'know: when he goes we all go... (Sam Leith ‏@questingvole)

An Oxford professor’s highest accolade was to mark an essay “B+++?+”.

Are you a genie?
I’m a genius!
Do you grant wishes?
I wish for grants.

Professor 1: I have some interesting conundra about pendula.
Professor 2: We have better things to do than sit on our ba doing sa.

Why are there no decent chemistry jokes? Because all the good ones argon.
(Michelle Martin ‏@m000sh)

I heard that Oxygen and Magnesium were going out, and I was like “OMg”.


What do grammarians want?
Government by, with or from the people, to or for the people.

You remind me of the sea.Wild and romantic?
No, you make me sick.
My wife's going to America. Which state?
Alaska. Don't bother, I was just making conversation.
(Dave Turner ‏@mrdaveturner)

Concerned onlooker to soldier back from Dunkirk: What was it like?
Soldier: My dear! The noise! And the people!


Diner: Waiter, waiter, this coffee tastes like mud!
Waiter: Well, sir, it was only ground this morning...

Customer: Waiter, do you serve crabs?
Waiter: We serve everyone, sir.


Q: What do you get if you cross an octopus with a chimpanzee?
A: A cessation of funding and a stern rebuke from the ethics committee.
(Geoff Robbins ‏@_TheGeoff)

Man to young lady who has fallen over: Can I help you – I saw your predicament?
Young lady: Well, if you were a gentleman you wouldn’t mention it!
(Donald McGill)


In the US Tax Court

Witness: As God is my judge, I do not owe this tax.
Judge: He’s not. I am. You do.

Counsel: You've a remarkable intelligence for someone of your background.
Witness: Thanks. I'd return the compliment, if I wasn't under oath.
(both from Gary Slapper ‏@garyslapper)

An incompetent lawyer can delay a trial for months or years. A competent lawyer can delay one even longer.
(@Montberte_Mayor)

A lawyer went swimming off the Australian coast and the sharks never touched him.
Why? Professional courtesy.

Why is the London Overground like a fish scale? Because it's a whale weigh!


Sign outside dancing school: GONE CHOPIN, BACH IN FIVE MINUETS, TRY HANDEL

In shoe mender’s window: I WILL HEEL YOU. I WILL SAVE YOUR SOLE. I WILL EVEN DYE FOR YOU.

Get me a crocodile sandwich and make it snappy!
I like Waitrose.  It keeps the riff-raff out of Fortnum's.

Jokes about white sugar are rare, but brown sugar - Demerara.
Your teeth are like stars - they come out at night.
You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead.

Doctor, doctor, I’ve got Bright’s Disease and he’s got mine!
Meetings: where people take hours to take minutes.

Why are there no horses in the Isle of Wight? They prefer Cowes to Ryde.
Why are there no aspirins in the jungle? Because the parrots et’em all.

Don’t trust atoms – they make up everything.
Euripides trousers? Eumenides trousers!!!
(Douglas Murphy ‏@entschwindet)

The train now standing at platforms 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 has come in sideways.
Will the passengers taking the train on Platform 9 please put it back.

My paper aeroplane won't fly. It's completely stationery.

Old demographers never die. They just get broken down by age and sex. (@conradhackett)

If it wasn’t for Venetian blinds it would be curtains for all of us. (efrog@cix

What do ghosts eat? Ghoulash!

Two silk worms have a race. It ended in a tie.
I phoned the local ramblers club today and this bloke just went on and on...
Aeroplane theft – it’s taking off.
Exit signs – they’re on their way out.
(from the MD of cix.online.com)

Nathan Rothschild, of the legendary financial family, is at work at his desk in London. A peer of the realm is brought in. Rothschild, intent on his ledgers, invites him to take a seat. Offended, the visitor blusters about his high standing. "Take two seats," Rothschild says.

Queen Victoria is seated at a banquet next to a Russian dignitary.
Queen Victoria: And how do you like Britain?
Russian: I like it veeeeeery much. There’s just one thing. Your place names! They are so long!
Queen Victoria: So long???
Russian: Yes: Leeeeeeeds, Baaaaaaath! In Russia: Ekaterinoslav.
(Brahms and Simon)

One Christmas Day at Jesus College in Cambridge, staff have the day off, and the phone lines are all plugged through to the Master's Lodge. The phone rings:
Caller: Hello, is that Jesus?Master: Yes. Can I help you?
Caller: Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to You...

Two elderly Victorian ladies exit a production of Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra: “How different, how very different from the home life of our own dear Queen.”


TELEGRAMS
Shaw to Churchill: HAVE RESERVED TWO TICKETS FOR MY FIRST NIGHT COME AND BRING A FRIEND, IF YOU HAVE ONE.
Churchill's reply: IMOSSIBLE COME FIRST NIGHT WILL COME SECOND NIGHT IF THERE IS ONE.


Our local theatre is threatened with closure. The director has asked the council to act. They say they will, as soon as they have finished looking into the holes that have appeared in the High Street.
And some burglars have taken all the loos from the local police station. The police say they have nothing to go on.

Egg left at crime scene. Police scramble resources.

A tall man and a midget are suspected: police are looking high and low.

In later news: A milk float and a lorry carrying eggs crashed in the High Street this evening. Police have taken both drivers into custody. (from RN and MB)

Two hippies harangue their school-uniformed son about banning the bomb, free love and saving the planet.
Small boy: Mother, father, must you go on so?
(Old Private Eye cartoon by Michael Heath)

More here, and links to the rest.

Grammar: Clichés 3

"One of the largest figures in politics today"

Can we stop saying politicians "toured" a flood-affected area? It's not a tourist attraction. It's a natural disaster. (Ryan Kessler @therkess)

Why is mercury always set to plummet and cold weather to sweep across the country in tabloid journalism? (Caroline Mansfield ‏@LadyofMisrule)

How are we entwined? Inextricably. What are our rows? Furious. Where are we teetering? On the brink. (Sam Leith @questingvole)

Faceless estates, suburban sprawl, soulless financial districts. (Feargus O'Sullivan ‏@FeargusOSull)
Modernist architecture is soulless and oppressive and ugly. (theamericanconservative.com)

Love way people turn into cod-Jane Austens when writing dating site profiles: 'Confess I have a penchant for exploring and am a tad flighty'. (@MarkOneinFour)

Why would anyone just "say" anything? Not when you can retort, argue, groan, sputter, question, posit, avow, crow, declare and implore. (Typical YA Heroine ‏@TypicalYAHero)

By law, every story about silly urban development schemes must quote some local booster dreaming of putting their neighborhood "on the map". (@davidjmadden Apr 5)

BAFTA tweets are all saying “X is the best at what he does”.

There should be a rule that you can only say 'This is where the magic happens' if you are literally gesturing at a wizard's lair. (Rebecca Davis ‏@becsplanb)

I'm all for free speech, but I would support an absolute and permanent ban on disgraced people saying "I'm not perfect" in speeches. (Derek Thompson ‏@DKThomp)

By the way, a footnote: not all 20-year-olds are "fresh-faced". (@DAaronovitch)

‘Symbolizing fertility’ is often scholar-speak for ‘not terribly sure what’s going on’ (see also: ‘apotropaic’ and ‘ritualistic’). (medium.com)

'Talks'. There's either a 'breakthrough', or they 'collapse in acrimony'. (Hugh Pearman)


If “big” means “important”, how do you say something’s “large”?
There are significant pockets of people that have decided to forgo the immunisation process. (Skeptic March 2015): sizeable pockets

the water rises more: it rises higher

The Ringways awoke a great level of protest. People campaigned heavily against the destruction of their neighbourhoods, and the plans were abandoned in 1973. (Douglas Murphy in the Guardian April 2015): high level, campaigned strenuously

The number of objects is so big that... (thornews.com): Numbers can be high or low.
Bones have a bigger story to tell. (Secrets of Bones): a more important story
London’s massive housing shortage: severe

Whether or not you like Hillary Clinton, it’s impossible to deny that she is one of the largest figures in politics today. (gloss.com): most significant

This was a huge milestone. (Nature’s Miracle Orphans): significant
“We think it’s a very large milestone,” says Claudia Angeli of the University of Louisvillle [talking about the injured possibly re-learning to walk].

Some big things have been changing, however. (citylab.com)
Another big reason [for village desertion] is a change of farming. (Mick Aston)

Small-scale gold mining may be a big source (of mercury). (New Scientist Aug 2014: They mean “source of a large amount”.

There were big restrictions on the tube network: severe
He made some big points: important

a growing glut of contentious sites (Independent) Once you’ve got a glut, you’ve reached saturation – or surfeit. A glut can’t grow (and it certainly can’t deepen).


All that money comes at the heaviest possible price. (Prices rise or fall, are high or low – not heavy or light. Losses can be heavy, you can pay a heavy toll.)
That translates into greater access to heavily white neighbourhoods with good public schools. (Time, Jan 2014)

Interactive map shows how income inequality has deepened across the globe. (Andy Pakula ‏@apakula): The income gap widened.
The housing crisis continues to grow: worsen
It is 50 years ago that Dutch elm disease began to erupt here (Times Feb 2015): emerge, attack, spread, proliferate
London’s Urban Beekeeping Scene Is Exploding (vice.com) (expanding rapidly)

In 1536 Henry VIII's Parliament passed an act which saw the Dissolution of the Monasteries. (English Heritage): led to

a brutal duel, a brutal game of cat and mouse (Ben McIntyre on Kim Philby Both duels and games of cat and mouse are gentlemanly and refined, not brutal. How about “ruthless”?)
California is currently laboring under a brutal drought. (Jezebel Mar 2014): extreme, severe
a brutal winter storm: severe
Remember that Europe has just come out the other side of a world war and a brutal flu epidemic. (silentlondon.co.uk): Here’s a place for deadly or devastating.


Nature documentaries must say “teeming with life” at some point, and use Tennysonian phrases like “summer’s bounty”.

“Their most precious harvest” – someone turns over a piece of honeycomb slowly and reverently. “Harsh realities are never far away – even the summer nights hold an unwelcome chill.” “After dark, the village takes on a siege mentality. The villagers close themselves off from some very unwelcome visitors – Asian black bears. It’s not just bears on the prowl. Foxes take their pick… in the shadows an even more sinister presence is lurking.” “A devastating intensity – a botanical wonderland – coaxing new blooms from the rich glacial soil...” (All from Wild India. Nobody talks like this.)

End your nature or science doc with the words “…in ways we (or scientists) are only just beginning to understand”.
Don’t forget that dinosaurs “reigned” for 65 million years, or perhaps “ruled the earth”.


Science writers are still trying to make dramatic events more exciting. Entities don’t take in, ingest or inhale, they suck or gulp. They don’t emit or exhale but belch, spew or burp.

Meanwhile, it sucks down Amazon adverts from the cloud. (Steven Poole, Guardian 2013)
Offshore wind farms could suck enough power from a hurricane to reduce its impact on land. (stanford.edu)
This environmental catastrophe involves sucking millions of tons of small fish out of the sea and crushing them into fish oil and dry feed for farmed fish, pigs and chicken. (Isabel Oakeshott, Sunday Times Jan 2014) Try draw or extract.
Eruptions spew from these gashes.
The Lea then flows through a once heavily polluted former industrial area before belching its silt into the Thames in London’s old docklands. (citylab.com) Try "discharging".


There’s a kind of mission-statement speak with a long list of aims that are utterly vague – all about people being “passionate” or “messianic” about what they do, and companies having a “flexible response”, instead of actually doing anything.


It's a bit of an outrage with new towers going up in London sitting empty. (Don’t towers “stand empty”?)
The stones of Stonehenge “and the wider landscape in which they sit”. (They stand. They’re standing stones.)

Dictators are toppled, markets tumble, plummet or plunge. Like “do battle” for “fight”, does it sound more dramatic than “fall” or “drop”?
There’s no need to smash or shatter a record – breaking a record is breaking a record, and it’s exciting enough. You might break it by miles, of course, but all you’ve done is break it.

Who are these people who say that romance is dead? Where is their research? And do we all need our faith in human nature restored? More restoration: anything to its former glory, your faith in anything. (The only one I hate more is “lulled into a false sense of security”.)

Why “unbridled” lust? “Bridle the incitements to lust.” (Origen, De Principiis. In Ireland, there’s a sculpture of lust wearing a bridle. About 800 years after Origen.)

Tender age doesn’t just mean “age”. You can die at the tender age of 5, or ironically at the tender age of 76.

If you want to be flowery, beginning writers and artists are “budding artists” etc. Their talent may “blossom”. “Blooming marvellous!” They may form a “burgeoning movement”, or a “flowering of talent”. If unlucky, they may “wither on the vine”.

If you want to sell toiletries to women, you must claim they are “gentle – not like harsh old-fashioned products”.

Meanwhile...
Many people remain mired in poverty.
Wars are brutal, civil wars are bloody, gaps yawn, abuse is hurled.
Destroyed buildings are “left a smoking ruin”.
Poor driving conditions are treacherous, ice grips or entombs.
Fortunately choirboys are “suitably” seraphic, angelic or cherubic.

How exactly does one shove a belief down another person's throat?

Why is it always "Armageddon" and never "Ragnarok"?

No, no pranks are “hilarious”. No pranks are even funny.

More here, and links to the rest.