Language Jokes

For more than 30 years, New York magazine has run a contest in which contestants take a well-known foreign language expression, change a single letter, and provide a definition for the new expression. Here are some favorites.

Harlez-vous français?
→ CAN YOU DRIVE A FRENCH MOTOCYCLE?

Cogito Eggo Sum.
→ I THINK; THEREFORE I AM A WAFFLE.

Rigor morris.
→ THE CAT IS DEAD.

Repondez-vous s'il vous plaid.
→ HONK IF YOU'RE SCOTTISH.

Que sera serf.
→ LIFE IS FEUDAL.

Posh mortem.
→ DEATH STYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS.

Pro Bozo publico
→ SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL CLOWN.

Après Moe le deluge.
→ LARRY AND MOE GOT WET.

Haste cuisine.
→ FAST FRENCH FOOD.

Veni, vidi, vice.
→ I CAME, I SAW, I PARTIED.

Mazel ton.
→ TONS OF LUCK.

Aloha oy.
→ LOVE; GREETINGS; FAREWELL; FROM SUCH A PAIN YOU SHOULD NEVER KNOW.

Visa la France.
→ DON'T LEAVE YOUR CHATEAU WITHOUT IT.

L'état, c'est moo.
→ I'M BOSSY AROUND HERE.

Cogito, ergo spud.
→ I THINK, THEREFORE I YAM. (OK, more than 1 letter.)

Veni, vidi, velcro
→ I CAME, I SAW, I STUCK AROUND. (OK, another exception.)

• Did you know that "verb" is a noun?
• How can you look up words in a dictionary if you can't spell them?
• If a word is misspelled in a dictionary, how would we ever know?
• If two mouses are mice and two louses are lice, why aren't two houses hice?
• If Webster wrote the first dictionary, where did he find the words?
• If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?
• If you've read a book, you can reread it. But wouldn't this also mean that you would have to "member" somebody in order to remember them?
• In Chinese, why are the words for crisis and opportunity the same?
• Is it a coincidence that the only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable?
• Is there another word for a synonym?
• Shouldn't there be a shorter word for "monosyllabic"?
• What is another word for "thesaurus"?
• Where do swear words come from?
• Why can't you make another word using all the letters in "anagram"?
• Why do fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing?
• Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
• Why do people use the word "irregardless"?
• Why do some people type "cool" as "kewl?"
• Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack?
• Why do we say something's out of order when its broken but we never say in of order when it works?
• Why does "cleave" mean both split apart and stick together?
• Why does "slow down" and "slow up" mean the same thing?
• Why does flammable and inflammable mean the same thing?
• Why does the Chinese ideogram for trouble symbolize two women living under one roof?
• Why does X stand for a kiss and O stand for a hug?
• Why doesn't "onomatopoeia" sound like what it is?
• Why don't we say "why" instead of "how come"?
• Why is "crazy man" an insult, while to insert a comma and say "Crazy, man!" is a compliment?
• Why are a wise man and wise guy opposites?
• Why is abbreviation such a long word?
• Why is dyslexic so hard to spell?
• Why is it so hard to remember how to spell MNEMONIC?
• Why is it that no word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple?
• Why is it that the word "gullible" isn't in the dictionary?
• Why is it that we recite at a play and play at a recital?
• Why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
• Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?
• Why is the plural of goose-geese, and not the plural of moose-meese?
• Why isn't "palindrome" spelled the same way backwards?
• Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds?

Twenty-one reasons why English is hard to learn.

1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there was no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen on how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Cracking an international market is a goal of most growing corporations. It shouldn't be that hard, yet even the big multi-nationals run into trouble because of language and cultural differences. For example, observe the following examples below.

The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, "ko-kou-ko-le," which can be loosely translated as "happiness in the mouth."

In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead."

Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."

The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem - Feeling Free," got translated in the Japanese market into "When smoking Salem, you feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty."

When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, it was apparently unaware that "no va" means "it won't go." After the company figured out why it wasn't selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to the Caribe.

When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." However, the company mistakenly thought the spanish word "embarazar" meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that "It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."

An American t-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of the desired "I Saw the Pope" in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed "I Saw the Potato."

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.

In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into Schweppes Toilet Water.

Webster's Dictionary definition of Windows 95

Windows95: n. 32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that can't stand 1 bit of competition.

ODE TO A SPELL CHECKER
by Jerrold H Zar

I have a spelling checker.
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing.
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when aye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too be a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker's
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we're lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid to wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know fault's with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
it does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word's fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too pleas.

Humorous Computer-Related Acronyms

• IBM: I Blame Microsoft / Idiots Buy Me / Idiots Building Machines / I'll Buy Macintoshes / It Bit Me / It Built Microsoft / It's Better Manually / I've Been Mislead / I've Been Mugged
• WINDOWS: Well, It Never Does Operate With Speed / When I Need Data Output Without Speed / While Idle, Needs DX or WorkStation / Will Install Needless Data On Whole System
• WIN: Whoppingly Immense NOP Worm Infestation Netware
• MS-WINDOWS NT / WINDOWS NT: My Solitaire With Its New De-accelerator, Only With Some Network Technology / Well Intended, Netword De-accelerator, Only Works Sometimes, Never Totally
• WINDOWS (as a) Network Trojan

Different Operating Systems Expectations

• Macintosh: What You See Is What You Get
• MS-DOS: You Asked For It, You Got It
• UNIX: IfUHv2sk, UDntWnt2Kno
• VMS: You Got It, All Of It, Want It Or Not

Random Abbreviations for Many Computer Companies

• APPLE: Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity
• DEC: Dump Everything and Close
• DEC: Do Expect Cuts
• HCL: Hilarious Computer Logic
• HP: Hot Pursuit
• IBM: I Blame Microsoft
• MAC: Most Absurd Computer
• MACINTOSH: Most Applications Crash; If Not, The Operating System Hangs
• MICROSOFT: Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only Fools Teenagers
• NEXT: Now EXchange for Trash
• OS/2: Obsolete Soon, Too.
• WARP: What A Rot Program

Acronymns for Other Computer Terms:

• AMIGA: A Merely Insignificant Game Addiction
• BASIC: Bill's Attempt to Seize Industry Control
• CD-ROM: Consumer Device, Rendered Obsolete in Months
• COBOL: Completely Obsolete Business Oriented Language
• DOS: Defective Operating System
• ISDN: It Still Does Nothing
• LISP: Lots of Infuriating & Silly Parenthesis
• MIPS: Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed
• PCMCIA: People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
• PENTIUM: Produces Erroneous Numbers Through Incorrect Understanding of Mathematics
• SCSI: System Can't See It
• WWW: World Wide Wait

In a recent contest in The Washington Post, readers were asked to take an expression using a number, add or subtract one, and create a new definition:

• The Year 2001 Problem: How to find jobs for all those programmers hired to solve the Year 2000 problem.
• Catch-23: Complete the previous catch before proceeding to this step.
• Fortune 501: Levi Strauss makes the list, but just by the seat of its pants.
• Motel 5: If you're not there by midnight, they turn off the light.
• Dressed to the Eights: Impeccably attired with white socks.
• Six Brides for Seven Brothers: Someone's gonna get hurt !
• Snow White and the Eight Dwarfs: The title, before they expelled Gassy.
• Five Eyes: Other kids can be so cruel when you are Siamese twins, and one of you is wearing a monocle.
• 665: The mark on the forehead of Satan's slightly less evil brother, Ralph.

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his English class one day. "In English," he said, "A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."

A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.2. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.3. Employ the vernacular.4. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc. 5. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.6. Remember to never split an infinitive.7. Contractions aren't necessary.8. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.9. One should never generalize.10. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."11. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.12. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.13. Be more or less specific.14. Understatement is always best.15. One-word sentences? Eliminate.16. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.17. The passive voice is to be avoided.18. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.19. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.20. Who needs rhetorical questions?21. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.22. Don't never use a double negation.23. capitalize every sentence and remember always end it with point24. Do not put statements in the negative form.25. Verbs have to agree with their subjects.26. Proofread carefully to see if you words out.27. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.28. A writer must not shift your point of view.29. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.)30. Don't overuse exclamation marks!!31. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to the irantecedents.32. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.33. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.34. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.35. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.36. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.37. Always pick on the correct idiom.38. The adverb always follows the verb.39. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; They're old hat; seek viable alternatives.