- HOME
- INTRO TO THE FORUM
- USE AND MISUSE
- BADLY WRITTEN, BADLY SPOKEN
- GETTING
TO KNOW ENGLISH - PREPARING FOR ENGLISH PROFICIENCY TESTS
- GOING DEEPER INTO ENGLISH
- YOU ASKED ME THIS QUESTION
- EDUCATION AND TEACHING FORUM
- ADVICE AND DISSENT
- MY MEDIA ENGLISH WATCH
- STUDENTS' SOUNDING BOARD
- LANGUAGE HUMOR AT ITS FINEST
- THE LOUNGE
- NOTABLE WORKS BY OUR VERY OWN
- ESSAYS BY JOSE CARILLO
- Long Noun Forms Make Sentences Exasperatingly Difficult To Grasp
- Good Conversationalists Phrase Their Tag Questions With Finesse
- The Pronoun “None” Can Mean Either “Not One” Or “Not Any”
- A Rather Curious State Of Affairs In The Grammar Of “Do”-Questions
- Why I Consistently Use The Serial Comma
- Misuse Of “Lie” And “Lay” Punctures Many Writers’ Command Of English
- ABOUT JOSE CARILLO
- READINGS ABOUT LANGUAGE
- TIME OUT FROM ENGLISH GRAMMAR
- NEWS AND COMMENTARY
- BOOKSHOP
- ARCHIVES
Click here to recommend us!
LANGUAGE HUMOR AT ITS FINEST
Making yourself more proficient in English need not be a drag. You can actually speed up the learning process and make it fun by generously lacing it with humor—but preferably the best that the English language can offer.
In this new section, apart from giving a fixed slot to our weekly “In a Lighter Vein” pop-out humor piece in the Forum homepage, we have put together the finest of those weekly humor pop-ups since the Forum started. The best of them—collected from various sources on the web and sent in by friends—are all here, posted in the Forum under the following headings: Wordplay, On the Job, Student and School Life, and Miscellany.
So if you missed any of the best of the Forum’s weekly humor pop-ups, you can enjoy and savor them again and again here—and better still, share them with your friends!
Click here to go to the board (requires registration to post)
Authentic statements from English-as-a-Second-Language tests
English is not an easy language. Something that’s close to what you might want to say could mean something completely different. Here are some actual things spoken or written by nonnative English speakers who are a little rusty on their English:
“A world without television is a world without knowing, and without television there would be no famous people.”
***
“History deeply amuses, from the Ice Age to the war in Iraq.”
***
“I was a prodigy of a teenage pregnancy.”
***
“I hate to see people sad or angry because you only get one life so why waste it on retarted stuff.”
***
“Cell phones evolutionated the industry of communication.”
***
“I recently gave birth to a gorgeous and healthy five-month-old baby girl.”
***
“If not for the cell phones, we would still not know where we are at.”
***
“If you seat down and wash TV all time, you get fat.”
***
“We could talk, eat snakes and laugh.”
***
“In conclusion, television affects my life by not getting a part-time job in the afternoon.”
***
“In the 18th century, there weren’t many television programs designed for children.”
***
“New Mexico are my best experience or best times I never had.”
***
“Sometimes television’s programation has bad bad quality of programs.”
***
“Travel is an activity that makes me feel another person.”
***
“I felt the happiest woman on Earth at the time.”
***
“T.V. could be bad too because you could go more blinder.”
***
“Just feeling the cool breeze going through my face.”
***
“I use my dancing skills at clubs, churches, and AA gatherings.”
***
“I came to the conclusion that apart from myself, I don’t have any talents.”
***
“On top of her, I have a pretty big family.”
***
“Anyone can laugh at a good joke or enjoy watching a friend trip.”
***
“When I’m in my nursing home and some detestable scoundrel dares to steal my pudding, you know I’ll be willing to throw down.”
***
“The calming crash of the waves against the rocks screamed serenity.”
—From “Things People Said: The Language Barrier”
Go to Wordplay now!
Go to On the Job now
Go to Student and School Life now!
Go to Miscellany now!
