The Joke Thread

[mdiederi]

How to put out a boat fire:

[D&D]

This story is confirmed in Elmer Bendiner's book, The Fall of Fortresses.
*Sometimes, it's not really just luck.*

Elmer Bendiner was a navigator in a B-17 during WW II. He tells this story of a World War II bombing run over Kassel, Germany , and the unexpected result of a direct hit on their gas tanks. "Our B-17, the Tondelayo, was barraged by flak from Nazi antiaircraft guns. That was not unusual, but on this particular occasion our gas tanks were hit.

Later, as I reflected on the miracle of a 20 millimeter shell piercing the fuel tank without touching off an explosion, our pilot, Bohn Fawkes, told me it was not quite that simple. "On the morning following the raid, Bohn had gone down to ask our crew chief for that shell as a souvenir of unbelievable luck.

The crew chief told Bohn that not just one shell but 11 had been found in the gas tanks. 11 unexploded shells where only one was sufficient to blast us out of the sky. It was as if the sea had been parted for us. A near-miracle, I thought.

Even after 35 years, so awesome an event leaves me shaken, especially after I heard the rest of the story from Bohn.
"He was told that the shells had been sent to the armorers to be defused. The armorers told him that Intelligence had picked them up. They could not say why at the time, but Bohn eventually sought out the answer. "Apparently when the armorers opened each of those shells, they found no explosive charge. They were as clean as a whistle and just as harmless.

Empty? Not all of them! One contained a carefully rolled piece of paper. On it was a scrawl in Czech. The Intelligence people scoured our base for a man who could read Czech.Eventually they found one to decipher the note. It set us marveling.

Translated, the note read:

*"This is all we can do for you now...

Using Jewish slave labor is never a good idea."

[jeanathon]

Great story. Not sure about it being in the joke thread, but at least the story is out there.

[avb3]

A bloke walks into a Glasgow library and says to the prim librarian, ‘Excuse me Miss, dey ye hae ony books on suicide?'

To which she stops doing her tasks, looks at him over the top of her glasses and says, 'Buggeroff, ye'll nae bring it back!'

[socaldmax]

In light of recent events in Ferguson, MO, this kinda tickled my funnybone on a couple of levels...

[D&D]

Just how has English become a wide spread language ? Anyone starting to learn it would give it up in moments if they knew what a journey they were embarking upon.</SPAN>
Homographs are words of like spelling but with more than one meaning. A homograph that is also pronounced differently is a heteronym.

You think English is easy?? I think a retired English teacher was bored...THIS IS GREAT!

Read all the way to the end... This took a lot of work to put together! It gets better and better as you go along.

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce .
3) The dump was so full that 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 is 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. (?dove!!!)
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row .
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the 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 for me to wind the sail.
18) I shed a tear. upon seeing the tear in the painting
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why don't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell.

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick'?


There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP'.

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP !
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look UP the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost a quarter of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP. When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP .

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so....................... it is time to shut UP!

[BigJohn]

Church Bells .........

Upon hearing that her elderly grandfather had just passed away, Claudia went straight to her grandparent' s house to visit her 95-year-old grandmother and comfort her.

When she asked how her grandfather had died, her grandmother replied, 'He had a heart attack while we were making love on Sunday morning.

Horrified, Claudia told her grandmother that people nearly 100 years old having sex would surely be asking for trouble.

'Oh no, my dear,' replied granny.! 'Many years ago, realizing our advanced age, we figured the best time to do it was when the church bells would start to ring. It was just the right rhythm ... Nice and slow and even. Nothing too strenuous, simply in on the Ding and out on the Dong.'

She paused to wipe away a tear, and continued,

'He'd still be alive if the fire engine had not passed by .....

[Coops]

The world's leading tennis player has fallen foul of new EU regulations and had his 3kW Hoover impounded.

He will now be known as No Vac Djokovic.

Coops.

[BandB]

Originally Posted by D&D

Just how has English become a wide spread language ? Anyone starting to learn it would give it up in moments if they knew what a journey they were embarking upon.</SPAN>
Homographs are words of like spelling but with more than one meaning. A homograph that is also pronounced differently is a heteronym.

You think English is easy?? I think a retired English teacher was bored...THIS IS GREAT!

Read all the way to the end... This took a lot of work to put together! It gets better and better as you go along.

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce .
3) The dump was so full that 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 is 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. (?dove!!!)
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row .
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the 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 for me to wind the sail.
18) I shed a tear. upon seeing the tear in the painting
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why don't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell.

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick'?


There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP'.

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP !
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look UP the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost a quarter of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP. When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP .

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so....................... it is time to shut UP!

Wifey B: UP Yours...hehe

[LakeSuperior]

Originally Posted by D&D

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP'.

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP !
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look UP the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost a quarter of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP. When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP .

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so....................... it is time to shut UP!

We Yoopers live in the UP!! (Upper Peninsula of Michigan).

People in the lower peninsula are known as trolls because they live under the bridge (Mackinaw Bridge).
.

[Weatherhelm]

An elderly spinster called the lawyer's office and told the
receptionist she wanted to see the lawyer about having a will prepared.

The receptionist suggested they set up an appointment for a
convenient time for the spinster to come into the office.

The woman replied, "You must understand, I've lived alone all my
life, I rarely see anyone, and I don't like to go out. Would it be
possible for the lawyer to come to my house?"

The receptionist checked with the attorney who agreed and he went
to the spinster's home for the meeting to discuss her estate and the
will.

The lawyer's first question was, "Would you please tell me what
you have in assets and how you'd like them to be distributed under your
will?"

She replied, "Besides the furniture and accessories you see here,
I have $40,000 in my savings account at the bank."

"Tell me," the lawyer asked, "how would you like the $40,000 to be
distributed?"

The spinster said, "Well, as I've told you, I've lived a reclusive life,
people have hardly ever noticed me, so I'd like
them to notice when I pass on. I'd like to provide $35,000 for my
funeral."

The lawyer remarked, "Well, for $35,000 you will be able to have
a funeral that will certainly be noticed and will leave a lasting
impression on anyone who may not have taken much note of you! But
tell me," he continued, "what would you like to do with the remaining
$5,000?"

The spinster replied, "As you know, I've never married, I've
lived alone almost my entire life, and in fact I've never slept
with a man. Before I die, I'd like you to use the $5,000 to arrange for a
man to sleep with me."

"This is a very unusual request," the lawyer said, adding, "but I'll see
what I can do to arrange it and get back to you."

That evening, the lawyer was at home telling his wife about the eccentric
spinster and her weird request.

After thinking about how much she could do around the house with
$5,000 and with a bit of coaxing, she got her husband to agree to
provide the service himself. She said, "I'll drive you over tomorrow
morning, and wait in the car until you're finished."

The next morning, she drove him to the spinster's house and
waited while he went into the house. She waited for over an hour,
but her husband didn't come out. So she blew the car horn.
Shortly, the upstairs bedroom window opened, the lawyer stuck his
head out and yelled, "Pick me up tomorrow, she's going to let the County
bury her!"

[avb3]

An elderly man had owned a large farm for several
years.

He had a large pond in the back. It was properly shaped for swimming, so he fixed it up nice with picnic tables, horseshoe pits, and some apple and peach trees.

One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond, as he hadn't been there for a while, and look it over.

He grabbed a twenty litre bucket to bring back some fruit.

As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee.

As he came closer, he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his pond.

He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end.

One of the women shouted to him, 'we're not coming out until you leave!'

The old man frowned, 'I didn't come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the pond naked.'

Holding the bucket up he said, 'I'm just here to feed the crocodile.'

Some old men can still think fast.

[Therapy]

SUPERMARKET PSYCHIC

A woman at the grocery store went to the register with these items in
her cart:

* a carton of eggs
* a quart of orange juice
* a head of romaine lettuce
* a 2 lb. can of coffee
* a 1 lb. package of bacon.

As she was unloading her items on the conveyor belt to check out, a
drunk standing behind her watched as she placed the items in front of the
cashier.

While the cashier was ringing up her purchases, the drunk calmly stated,
"You must be single."

The woman was a bit startled by this proclamation, but she was intrigued
by the derelict's intuition, since she was indeed single.

She looked at her six items on the belt and saw nothing particularly
unusual about her selections that could have tipped off the drunk
to her marital status.

Curiosity getting the better of her, she said "Well, you know what,
you're absolutely correct. But how on earth did you know that?"

The drunk replied, "Cause you're uglier than s**t".

[avb3]

A guy sitting at a bar at Heathrow Airport noticed a really beautiful woman sitting next to him.

He thought to himself: 'Wow, she's so gorgeous she must be an off duty flight attendant.

But which airline does she work for?'

Hoping to make her acquaintance, he leaned towards her and uttered the Delta slogan:

'Love to fly and it shows?'

She gave him a blank, confused stare and he immediately thought to himself:

Damn, she doesn't work for Delta.'

A moment later, another slogan popped into his head.

He leaned towards her again 'Something special in the air?'

She gave him the same confused look.

He mentally kicked himself, and scratched Singapore Airlines off the list.

Next he tried the Thai Airways slogan: 'Smooth as Silk.'

This time the woman turned on him,

'What the f**k do you want?'

The man smiled, then slumped back in his chair, and said,

'Ahhhhh, Quantas!! '

[avb3]

8. Other than Adam and Eve, life is sexually transmitted.

7. Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

6. Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. They can't tell them apart. If you see a gleam in his eyes, make him a sandwich.

5. Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach a person to use the Internet and they won’t bother you for weeks, months, maybe years.

4. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in the hospitals, dying of nothing.

3. All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

2. In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

1. Life is like a jar of Jalapeno peppers. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.

... And as someone recently said:

"Don't worry about old age. It doesn't last that long."