PUNS AND SPOONERISMS“A waist is a terrible thing to mind.”
(Jane Caminos)“Life’s a beach, and then you dry.”
“My karma ran over my dogma.”
“A hard man is good to find.”
(Mae West)MORPHOLOGY“Vegetarians eat vegetables—I’m a humanitarian.”
LEXICAL AMBIGUITY“I met this guy who said he loved children, then I found out he was on parole for it.”
(Monica Piper)“I still miss my ex-husband. But my aim is improving.”
“Question authority. Ask me anything.”
“It’s not true I had nothing on. I had the radio on.”
(Marilyn Monroe)“I’m a wonderful housekeeper. Every time I get divorced, I keep the house.”
(Zsa Zsa Gabor)“Nature abhors a vacuum. And so do I.” (
Anne Gibbons)“Marriage is a great institution, but I’m not ready for an institution yet.”
(Mae West)“I believe we should all pay our tax bill with a smile. I tried—but they wanted cash.”
“I majored in nursing but I had to drop it because I ran out of milk.”
(Judy Tenuta)IDIOMS“Take my advice—I'm not using it.”
“I’m over the hill, but the climb was terrific!”
“One more drink, and I'll be under the host.”
(Dorothy Parker)“Choose your words with taste. You may have to eat them.”
“Talk is cheap. Until you hire a lawyer.”
“I’d like to take you out—and leave you there.”
“To err is human but it feels divine.”
(Mae West)“My heart is as pure as the driven slush.”
(Tallulah Bankhead)“I eat junk food to get it out of the house.”
“I hate to spread rumors, but what else can one do with them?”
(Amanda Lear)“I’m so laid back I fell off.”
“You can’t judge a book by its movie.”
“George, you’re too old to get married again. Not only can’t you cut the mustard, honey, you’re too old to open the jar.
(La Wanda Page to George Burns)“A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country.”
(Texas Guinan)“Bureaucrats cut red tape—lengthwise.”
“My reality check just bounced.”
“I feel like a million tonight—but one at a time.”
(Mae West)“You can name your salary here—I call mine Zelda.”
“The problem with trouble-shooting is that trouble shoots back.”
STRUCTURAL AND SCOPE AMBIGUITY“This is not a novel to be tossed lightly aside. It should be thrown with great force.”
(Dorothy Parker)PRAGMATICS“My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She’s ninety-three today and we don’t know where the hell she is.
(Ellen Degeneres)“This recipe is certainly silly. It says to separate two eggs, but it doesn’t say how far to separate them.
(Gracie Allen)“My grandmother was a very tough woman. She buried three husbands. Two of them were just napping.
(Rita Rudner)“Don’t hate yourself in the morning—sleep till noon.”
“A woman came to ask the doctor if a woman should have children after 35. I said 35 children is enough for any woman!”
(Gracie Allen)OTHERS“I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.”
(Jane Wagner)“I didn’t steal this. It was “differently acquired.”
(Sara Cytron)“They say you shouldn’t say nothing about the dead unless it's good. He’s dead. Good.”
(Moms Mabley)“Dyslexics of the world untie.”
“There’s not much good in the worst of us, and so many of the worst of us get the best of us, that the rest of us aren't even worth talking about.
(Gracie Allen)“When I was born, I was so surprised I couldn’t talk for a year and a half.”
(Gracie Allen)—From Roz Warren’s Glibquips: Funny words by funny women (1994: The Crossing Press) as quoted by Beatrice Santorini in her Linguistic humor website Occupational HazardsA professor is one who talks in someone else’s sleep.
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A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn’t there. (Charles R. Darwin)
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A programmer is someone who solves a problem you didn’t know you had in a way you don’t understand.
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An actuary is someone who brings a fake bomb on a plane, because that decreases the chances that there will be another bomb on the plane. (Laurence J. Peter)
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A lawyer is a person who writes a 10,000 word document and calls it a “brief.” (Franz Kafka)
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A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. (Mark Twain)
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An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.
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An auditor is someone who arrives after the battle and bayonets all the wounded.
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An accountant is someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
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A statistician is someone who is good with numbers but lacks the personality to be an accountant.
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A topologist is a man who doesn’t know the difference between a coffee cup and a doughnut.
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A psychologist is a man who watches everyone else when a beautiful girl enters the room.
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A schoolteacher is a disillusioned woman who used to think she liked children.
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A consultant is someone who takes the watch off your wrist and tells you the time.
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A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip.
—From GreaterThings.com DaffynitionsA “daffynition” is any twisted and humorous definition of an English word. Here’s a a list of the better daffynitions—plus a few original ones—collected from the Internet by Jim Wegryn:
abdication — Giving up on stomach exercises.
adult — A person who has stopped growing up and starts growing out.
anarchy - Exception to the rule.
ashtray — Pig Latin for a piece of trash.
atheist — A believer in non-belief.
autopsy — A dying practice.
bachelor — A guy who never finds out how many faults he has.
bankers — The rooters of all evil.
bargain — Something that makes you think you’re saving money when you’re spending it.
bore — Someopne who, when you ask how he is, tells you.
bureaucracy — Capital punishment.
cannibal — Someone who is fed up with people.
card — Someone in a play suit.
chef — A cook with a large hat and a head to fill it.
chickens — Animals you can eat before they are born and after they are dead.
church — Where the world is seen through stained-glass.
committee — A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.
consciousness — That nightmare between sleeps.
custody — The last battle in a marriage.
cynics — Ignorant people who are ruining the county.
death — The only escape from taxes.
dictionary — The only place where divorce comes before marriage.
dignify — A way to make the hole you’re in look good.
diplomat — A person who tells you to get lost and you can’t wait to get started.
dust — Mud with the juice squeezed out.
esoteric — A word known only by esoteric people.
expression — Non-stop talking.
finance — The artful application of arithmetic.
flabbergasted — Reaction to seeing oneself naked in a mirror.
flashlight — A case for holding dead batteries.
fortune teller — A bank employee who only deals with large accounts.
gossip — An independent news source.
government — A necessity we could do without.
hanging — A suspended sentence.
hangover — The wrath of grapes.
headache — a cheap and effective contraceptive.
heirloom — A dead giveaway.
honeymoon — When a married couple moon their honeys.
hunch — A gut feeling you get during lunch.
hypochondriac — Someone who won’t let well enough alone.
inertia — Resisting arrest.
jury — A panel of twelve untrained in law who are asked their legal opinion.
kernel — A unit of corny.
lawyer — Deceiver, as in “lawyer, lawyer, pants on foyer.”
life — A sexually transmitted terminal disease.
lightheaded — Halo effect.
l
ocomotive — insanity plea
lottery — A tax on people who are lousy at math.
lymph — To walk with a lisp.
manicurist — Someone who makes money hand over fist.
mosquito — An insect that makes flies tolerable.
normal — 8 on a scale of 1 to 10.
optimist — A person who smells smoke and gets out the marshmallows.
pessimist — Someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street.
petroleum — Floor covering for dog and cat owners.
politician — One who shakes your hand before elections and your confidence after.
politics — Where truth lies.
predestination — Doomed from the start.
relentless — Not allowing someone to borrow something a second time.
religion — Where you find prophets and nonprofits.
secret — News you tell to one person at a time.
shin — What you use to find furniture in the dark.
sleep — That fleeting moment that ends alarmingly.
slumber — salvaged wood from condemned house.
stick — A boomerang that doesn’t come back.
suburbia — Where they cut down trees and put in streets named after them.
teenager — One whose hang-ups do not include clothes.
tomorrow — A great labor saving device of today.
tornado — An ending with a twist.
truth — Something that doesn’t lie in the open.
volunteer — Take on work that makes no cents.
wealth — Envied ownership.
yawn — An honest opinion openly expressed
—From Jim Wegryn PresentsQuestions To Ponder (Vol. I)If a parsley farmer is sued, can they garnish his wages?
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Would a fly without wings be called a walk?
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Can you be a closet claustrophobic?
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If the funeral procession is at night, do folks drive with their lights off?
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If a stealth bomber crashes in a forest, will it make a sound?
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When it rains, why don’t sheep shrink?
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If the cops arrest a mime, do they tell her she has the right to remain silent?
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Why is the word abbreviation so long?
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If a book about failures doesn’t sell, is it a success?
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Do cemetery workers prefer the graveyard shift?
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What do you do when you discover an endangered animal that eats only endangered plants?
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Do hungry crows have ravenous appetites?
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Is it possible to be totally partial?
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What’s another word for thesaurus?
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When companies ship Styrofoam, what do they pack it in?
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If it’s tourist season, why can’t we shoot them?
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Why do they sterilize the needles for lethal injections?
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Why is there an expiration date on my sour cream?
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Why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
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How do you know when it’s time to tune your bagpipes?
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Is it true that cannibals don’t eat clowns because they taste funny?
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Why do they call it a TV set when you only get one?
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If you shoot a mime, should you use a silencer?
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What was the best thing before sliced bread?
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How can they tell that twin lobsters are really twins?
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How does a thermos know when to keep something hot, hot...and something cold, cold?
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Why are there Braille signs on drive-up ATMs?
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If women wear a pair of pants, a pair of glasses, and a pair of earrings, why don’t they wear a pair of bras?
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How come you never hear about gruntled employees?
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Why isn’t phonetic spelt the way it sounds?
—The Humor Bin
