English Teaching Funnies

[geronimo]

here's a starter,

An English professor wrote these words, “A woman without her man is nothing.” On the whiteboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.

All of the boys wrote:

“A woman, without her man, is nothing.”

All of the girls wrote:

“A woman: without her, man is nothing.”

Punctuation is powerful!

[PeaceBlondie]

If this is on topic, I'll go ahead.

At my last school, the Thai teachers of English loved the funny cartoons from the Bangkok Post: Beetle Bailey, Blondie, etc. Trouble is, it's almost impossible to understand the humor unless you're a native speaker familiar with the US Army stereotypes and the 1950's classical nuclear family of man, blond wife, girl and boy with a dithering idiot of a boss at the office.

Repeatedly, I had to explain the background of the background of the culture that related back to the joke. It can't be that funny when you have to explain that much.

Then there was the cartoon strip about a pizza delivery boy bring the wrong pizzas to the big house party. The teachers got all the characters confused and thought it was set at an Italian restaurant. Which destroyed the point of the original cartoon. Nevertheless, the teachers insisted on putting the cartoons on the final exam and making incredibly bad answers, multiple choice [my response - all these answers are either best or worst!]

Likewise, if you have to take 15 minutes to explain how to play a game, it's too hard.

Oh, the original post reminds me of the religious little girl whose father was an atheist. He posted a sign over the front door: GOD IS NOWHERE.

She changed it to "GOD IS NOW HERE."

[Team Bukowski]

or how about: The Penis, mightier than the sword!

[Eastender]

A friend of mine asked her students what they wanted to be when they finished uni.

One replied, 'a pirate'. She thought it was funny but then spent about 10 minutes explaining a 'pirate' to the rest of the class. 'He sails on a boat'. He steals from other people'. 'Same as Johny Depp in Pirates Of The Caribean'. etc etc.

The student who first replied looked very confused and after a while said, 'no, a pirate, he fly airplane'.

True.