To write with a broken pencil is pointless.
 
When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate.
 
A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.
 
When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A.
 
The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes was on shaky ground.
 
The batteries were given out free of charge.
 
A dentist and a manicurist married. They fought tooth and nail.
 
A will is a dead giveaway.
 
If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.
 
With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.
 
Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I'll show you A-flat miner.
 
You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
 
Local Area Network in Australia: The LAN down under.
 
A boiled egg is hard to beat.
 
When you've seen one shopping centre you've seen a mall.
 
Police were called to a day care centre where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.

Did you hear about the fellow whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.
 
If you take a laptop computer for a run you could jog your memory.
 
A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.
 
In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.
 
When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
 
The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.
 
He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
 
Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
 
When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.
 
Acupuncture: a jab well done.

And the saddest of all is: 

The guy that fell into the glass making machine made a spectacle of himself....

A SPANISH Teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English , nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

 'House' for instance, is feminine: 'la casa.'
'Pencil,' however, is masculine: 'el lapiz.'

A student asked, 'What gender is 'computer'?' Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether computer' should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that 'computer' should definitely be of the feminine gender ('la computadora'), because:
1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ('el computador'), because:
1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;
2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.

Thanks to Fifi for these gems !

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 could 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. I did not object to the object.

9. There was a row among the oarsmen, about how to row.

10. They were too close to the door to close it.

11. Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.

12. How can I intimate this, to my most intimate friend?  

            I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead; it's said like bed, not bead;
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(they rhyme with suite and straight and debt)
A moth is not a moth in mother.
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.

And here is not a match for there.
And dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose --
Just look them up -- and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I've hardly made a start.

A dreadful language? Why, man alive,
I'd learned to talk it when I was five,
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five!

UP, kindly sent by Sue.

There is a two letter word that perhaps has more meaning than any other two letter Word. It's “UP."

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we waken 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, 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, and this is confusing.

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 of the proper uses of UP, look UP the word in the dictionary. In a desk size dictionary, UP takes UP almost 1/4th the page and definitions add UP to about thirty. 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 it doesn't rain for a while, things dry UP. One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so I'll shut UP. 

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in a hamburger, neither apple nor pine in a pine-apple. English muffins weren’t invented in England, nor French fries in France.  Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.