since we have the arrgh thread to rant I thought it might be a good idea to have another thread for the non-arrrghish funny things that we encounter, occasionally. For a start a quote from the official fire brigade report about a (fortunately minor) fire in the district office:
One from Jasper Carrots that he did on stage about real insurance claim forms.. "To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front I struck a pedestrian." lol
Possibly the finest and most satisfying put-down ever: "His speeches left the impression of an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea. Sometimes these meandering words would actually capture a straggling thought, and bear it triumphantly a prisoner in their midst, until it died of servitude and overwork".
ROTF! That's ingenious! It perfectly describes the stuff one of my colleagues used to write. He kept using foreign words (usually in a completyly wrong context or grossly mis-spelled) and extremely complicated grammatical structures in which he invariably got tangled up and was unable to find his way out. I am not sure what the situation is like in other countries but here in Germany the laziness of state officials is proverbial. (How do you play Official Mikado? - Who moves first is out.) Today the janitor and our head administrator discussed some problems with the new motion-triggered corridor lights. I couldn't resist to point out to them that a motion-triggered system was to be expected to fail in a building full of officials.
I ordered food for my cats today and the confirmation email starts like this: Then, I asked them a question about delivery times and the automatic message that acknowledges my email was received reads: It wasn't like that the last time I ordered from them
Cool! I ordered something from David Panzer's Highlander merchandizing company and as the shipment was very much delayed I decided to call their office. The answering machine asked me not to lose my head. I have to admit that in spite of being angry it made me giggle. It's so rare that business companies have a sense of humour. My colleagues still tease me about a typo I made 10 years ago. I had intended to permit the building of a big carp pond - Karpfenteich in my language. Due to an unfortunate typo it became a Krapfenteich, a donut-pond. I only noticed the typo when the pond owner called me the next day to thank me for the speedy permit and to inquire how to dispose of the hot suet in an environmentally friendly way. Most embarassing! I sent him a typo-free permit, of course, but I'm told he framed the other one and hung it up in his living room.
Yesterday I saw a very overweight, middle-aged man dressed as Little Bo Peep -- huge curly pigtails, crinolines, five o'clock shadow, and all -- just walking down the street. It was like Rave Little Bo Peep, though, because there were candy necklaces and those weird colored tubes raver chicks put in their hair. The funny bit wasn't the costume, but the typical NYC reaction he got, which was none.
Some time ago I was in a bookstore and a woman near me was talking very loudly on her phone. I had to laugh out loud when I heard her say "Yeah, he's, like, totally changed, man. He's done a complete 360!" I bet he was dizzy after that.
I came across this article on BBC News, about changing trends in alcohol consumption in Australia, which contains some hilarious reinforcement of stereotypes, the best paragraph being: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21586892
It could have been worse. If you'd made the same mistake in English, it would have been a crap pond. Speaking of typos, one time I typeset a business card for a woman with the title "Account Executive" under her name. Only I inadvertently left out the "o" in "account." No one caught the error and it went to the customer that way. (I swear it was an honest mistake -- I didn't even know the lady.) Yes, it's a pernicious stereotype that all Australians are big boozers. Hell, the Irish, the Scots and the Russians make the Aussies look like teetotalers!
not to mention the Germans in general and Bavarians in particular. A few years ago a freind told me something that had happened at her office: Two secretaries were working overtime and one ran out of paper. She had only one sheet left but needed another 10 and the guy who had the key to the paper storage room had already gone home. She asked her colleague but she happened to have no paper either and told her instead: "why don't you just go and take some from the photocopier?" - "Excellent idea", her colleague replied, went to the copier and made 10 copies of her empty sheet of paper.
Maybe she just didn't know how to open the photocopier to get the paper out, so did the obvious? I'd call that quite a good solution actually.
indeed. I was told that story by a friend. From what I have seen some of my colleagues do I'd say the story is very likely true. A thing that really happened (at a tax office in Finland, in 2004) is even more unbelievable but it was big in the news back then: a man had died at his desk and they noticed it only on the third day. The cleaners thought he was staring at his computer, concentratedly, and his colleagues didn't miss him at lunch because he often worked out of house. Found a short summary: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3410547.stm Such a thing could never happen at my office: here people greet the cleaners and chat a moment with them It'd instantly be noticed if someone didn't reply.
LOL indeed. I hadn't noticed that. Kinda proves my point that the involuntary things often are much more funny than deliberate comedy.