Banned
The laughter in grammar thread.
A linguistics professor was lecturing to his 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."
Order of Kilopi
A teacher, with a class of 10 year old says,
'Today we are going to use the word NICE'
Teacher - 'Emily?'
Emily - 'I had a nice holiday'
Teacher - 'Good. Jake?'
Jake - 'My ice-cream tastes nice'
Teacher - 'Excellent, Patrick?'
Patrick - 'It's nice to be pregnant'
Teacher - 'Patrick....what do you mean saying that?'
Patrick - 'When my sister came home last night and told my
dad she was pregnant he said "that's Nice, that's bloody nice!"
Established Member
Ha!
Q: What 5 letter word becomes shorter when you add 2 letters?
A: short
Order of Kilopi
My name is Yon Yonson,
I come from Wisconsin.
I work in a lumber yard there.
Everyone that I meet
When I walk down the street,
Says "Hello! What's your name?"
And I say: My name is Yon Yonson...
I wish I knew all those years ago that simply joining this board and proclaiming myself to be rational would magically transform my uninformed opinions into science; it would have saved me a lot of time and effort.
Banned
"English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin -- a language with which it has precious little in common. In Latin, to take one example, it is not possible to split an infinitive. So in English, the early authorities decided, it should not be possible to split an infinitive either. But there is no reason why we shouldn't, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans. Making English grammar conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football. It is a patent absurdity. But once this insane notion became established, grammarians found themselves having to draw up ever more complicated and circular arguments to accommodate the inconsistencies."
- Bill Bryson, "The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way"
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