Jokes from my trashbin

Polygamy:

comes from "poli" meaning "many"

and "gami" meaning "headache"

Polygamy: comes from "poli" meaning "many" and "gami" meaning "headache"

The punishment for bigamy is two mothers-in-law.

Quote from: Day Dreamer on September 14, 2013, 01:21:20 AM

Polygamy: comes from "poli" meaning "many" and "gami" meaning "headache"

The punishment for bigamy is two mothers-in-law.

Another reason to marry sisters. 

One of my favorite Rodney Dangerfield jokes:

"My wife just told me that from now on, she is only going to have sex with me once a month.

-audience groans-

Hey, don't feel bad for me:  I know some guys that she cut out all together!" 

He also said "My wife always talks to me during sex . . . even if she has to call me long distance!"

I was reading the obituaries this morning. It's amazing how people die in alphabetical order

Damn, I walked into a plate glass window

I didn't see it

What a pane

Since 'poly' is under discussion, I'll add this from a discussion of English usage among hackers
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/overgeneralization.html

Further, note the prevalence of certain kinds of nonstandard plural forms. ... the TMRC Dictionary [MIT Tech Model Railroad Club, early 60s] ... notes that the defined plural of ‘caboose’ is ‘cabeese’. ...

... almost anything ending in ‘x’ may form plurals in ‘-xen’ ...[e.g.] VAXen and boxen ... Among Perl hackers it is reported that ‘comma’ and ‘semicolon’ pluralize as ‘commata’ and ‘semicola’ respectively. Finally, it has been suggested to general approval that the plural of ‘mongoose’ ought to be ‘polygoose’.

So if you get mononucleosis a second time, it would be polinucleosis?

Is the plural of monogram polygram?

In the sad but sometimes true department:

What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual.
Two languages? Bilingual.
One language: American.

The first time I heard this it was told in French and directed at English Canadians, probably with about as much justice as the shot at Americans.

I was amazed at one point to find that most of my trilingual or better students -- a local South-of-China language plus fluent Mandarin, reasonable English and in many cases some Japanese -- did not think that was an accomplishment worth mentioning on a resume, even though at 18 or so they were looking moderately desperately for anything to pad the document with. Three or four might not impress most Europeans, but it looks pretty good to me. 

Considering my own difficulties studying languages, I have to say 3 languages by age 18 impresses me.
 going back to the jargon article, I was somewhat bemused by the statement:

However, hackers avoid the unimaginative verb-making techniques characteristic of marketroids, bean-counters, and the Pentagon; a hacker would never, for example, ‘productize’, ‘prioritize’, or ‘securitize’ things. Hackers have a strong aversion to bureaucratic bafflegab and regard those who use it with contempt.

"So show me how they're different", I thought. The claim at the end of the article may be disputable, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt:

It is grammatical creativity, a form of playfulness. It is done not to impress but to amuse, and never at the expense of clarity.

BTW, I have a cartoon somewhere (Calvin and Hobbes) that features the expression "Verbing weirds language" I use that in class sometimes

" A baby seal walks into a club" 

An Irishman walks out of a bar . . .

What? It could happen!

An Englishman, Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The barman says 'Is this some sort of f**king joke?