ANGUISHED ENGLISH III

An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language

Richard Lederer

School Excuses

Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father's fault.

 

Please excuse Mary for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot.

 

Dear School: Please eckuse John being absent on January 28 - 33. 

 

Please excuse Harriet for missing school yesterday. We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday, we thought it was Sunday.

 

Please excuse my son's tardiness. I forgot to wake him up and I did not find him till I started making the beds.

 

Court Cases

Attorney: Mrs. Jones, is your appearance this morning pursuant to a deposition which I sent to your attorney? 

Mrs. Jones: No, I always dress this way.

Attorney: Did you stay all night with this man in New York?

Defendant: I refuse to answer that question.

Attorney: Did you stay all night with this man in Chigago?

Defendant: I refuse to answer that question.

Attorney: Did you ever stay all night with this man in Miami?

Defendant : No.

Attorney: That afternoon, you took your dog for a walk. Is that correct?

Witness: Yes

Attorney: During that walk, did you stop at all?

Witness: You ever take a dog for a walk?

Church bulletins

Remember in prayer those who are sick of our church.

 

Potluck supper: prayer and medication to follow

 

For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs. 

 

Signs

In a New Hampshire jewelry store: Ears Pierced While You Wait

In a New York drug store: We Dispense With Accuracy

In a Florida maternity ward: No Children Allowed

Music Review

A whimsical number titled London Derriere was played by Stein as his salute to St. Patrick's Day. 

Newspaper Gaffe

In a recent edition we referred to the chairman of Chrysler Corporation as Lee Iacoocoo. His real name is Lee Iacaca. The Gazette regrets the error.

 

 

 

ANGUISHED ENGLISH II

An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language

Richard Lederer 

1.The government of England was a limited mockery.

2. Henry VIII had difficulty walking because of the abbess on his knee.

3. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.

 

4. The British Navy defeated the Spanish Armadillo.

5. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. Shakespeare was born in the year 1654, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived in Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies, and errors.

6. In one of Shakespeare's famous plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy.

7. John Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

8. Johann Bach write a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between, he practiced on an old spinster, which he kept in his attic.

 

9. One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in their tea. Also the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps.

10. The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West.

ANGUISHED ENGLISH I

An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language

Richard Lederer

 

1. In 1957, Eugene O'Neill won a  Pullet Surprise.

 

2. The inhabitants of Moscow are called Mosquitos.

 

3. Having one wife is called monotony.

 

4. Acrimony is what a man gives his divorced wife.

 

5. A virtuoso is a musician with real high morals.

 

6. The difference between a king and a president is that a king is the son of his father, but a president isn't.

 

7. Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies, and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sara Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain area of the dessert are cultivated by irritation.

8. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada. 

9. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Finkelsteins, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines. 

10. A myth is a female moth.

11. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intollerable. 

12. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.