Literally Speaking


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Preface


Book Contents


Test your Word Power
Enhance your Verbal Skills!


Jonathan Scott Hughes Music Scholarship Fund







LEXICON OF LINGUISTIC WEBSITES:

Conan the Grammarian: Word Whiz Richard Lederer's Homepage:
http://www.verbivore.com/

Check out his books!:
http://www.verbivore.com/rlbooks.htm

Virtually everything you want to know about English on the net!:
http://www.verbivore.com/rllink.htm
Used with permission of Richard Lederer, International Punster of the Year, Author of Anguished English and Get Thee to a Punnery.  Be sure to check out the preface he wrote for the Literally Speaking books at http://www.getliterallyspeaking.org/index.php?section=inaword!

Society for the Preservation of English Language and Literature
http://www.spellorg.com/
Used with permission of SPELL

KPBS A Way With Words (not to be confused with "Away with Words")
http://www.waywordradio.org

The Vocabula Review
http://www.vocabula.com/
Used with permission of Robert Hartwell Fiske


WEBSITES FOR WHICH CITATIONS APPEAR IN THE LITERALLY SPEAKING BOOKS:

Michael E. Eidenmuller's
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/

Gary Martin's http://www.phrases.org.uk

BOOK CITATION WHICH APPEARS IN THE LITERALLY SPEAKING BOOKS:

Cassell's Dictionary of Slang; Author: Jonathon Green



OTHER WEBSITES FOR THE LINGUISTICALLY INCLINED:

Test yourself on Commonly Confused Words

http://homepage.smc.edu/reading_lab/words_commonly_confused.htm
Used with permission of Joyce Cheney
 
Learn the Roots which are the Basis for a Bunch of Words
http://urbandreams.ousd.k12.ca.us/lessonplans/hyperverbicopia/root_assignment.pdf

Go Crazy with Quizzes!

http://www.syntaxis.com/index/grammar_quiz/grammar_quiz/

 

http://www.syntaxis.com/index/grammar_quiz/grammar_quiz/

 

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/cgi-shl/quiz20.pl/spelling_quiz3.htm

 

http://encarta.msn.com/quiz_310/could_you_out-spell_an_eighth_grader_quiz.html

 




SPOON ME, PLEASE...


Spoonerisms

The Reverend William Archibald Spooner is best remembered, not for being head of an Oxford college (1903-1924) but for his supposed habit of transposing letters of words producing what have come to be called 'SPOONERISMS'. Letter/sound transposition has since developed into a deliberate form of wordplay.

http://puzzles.about.com/od/wordloverssites/Word_Games_Puns_Riddles_Anagrams_Word_Games.htm
retrieved 3/22/08

My Favorites Spoonerisms from this Site

There is evidence that William Tell and his family were avid bowlers, but unfortunately all the league records were destroyed in a fire.  Thus we'll sadly never know for whom the Tells bowled.

Two American Football teams are on a tour of Europe and have a quiz to see which team can name most places in Holland. The game was won by a single Dutch Town.

He said he grown strong from all his dancing, but no-one believed him.  It was obvious to all that he was bearing waltz fitness.

"Here's champagne to our real friends... and real pain to our sham friends"

I'm a baker for the army. When I go to war, I go in all buns glazing.

A very nervous man became an investments broker. Whenever there was bad news about a company he held shares in, his nervousness would make is feet begin to sweat profusely.  It's apparently a common trait in investment circles, though - bad news makes your socks stink.

There is a street-seller who is well known in the area, as he tries to sell his rabbits to everyone who passes.  People see him arriving, and say "Look, there he is again, walking his hares."

http://puzzles.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=puzzles&cdn=hobbies&tm=18&gps=56_7_1276_604&f=00&su=p445.92.150.ip_&tt=14&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.badpuns.com/  retrieved 3/22/08

My Favorites Puns from this Site

My friend Max hates going up steep hills.
He's always been a bit of an anti-climb Max.

 

The police caught a burglar last night after he broke into a bathroom window, stood on a set of scales and gave himself a weigh.

My biologist friend tells me that constantly developing new varieties of plant can be a strain.

Our local Catholic church has plans to bring their parishioners to services by bus. They plan to call it mass transit.

Q: How can you tell when a bucket gets sick?
A: It becomes a little pale.

Bovine actors should be scene and not herd.

When I got sick, my psychaitrist sent me a basket of fruit.
It was shrink wrapped.

A subservient fish is one that knows his plaice.

The truck driver passed his mountain driving skills test. He was pleased to have made the grade.

Birthday candles are for people who want to make light of their age.

Q: How do you make a cigarette lighter?
A: You take out all the tobacco.

I know a farmer who has 200 head of cattle. He thought there were only 196 until he rounded them up.

I got sent a package the other day, but when it arrived it was all damp.
I complained at the post office, and they said it must have had postage dew.

Do bakers with a sense of humor bake wry bread?

The meteorologist was absolutely convinced of his theory on air currents.
He had the air of a man of strong convections.

When fishermen get too competitive, they start suffering from pier pressure.

When asked about subatomic particles, the physicist lepton the question.

After the silver prospector told his secrets, he found it was a real lode off his mine.

Two podiatrists who opened their offices on the same street. They were arch enemies.

Three of my fingers are willing to write, but my thumb and forefinger are opposed.

A sandwich walks into a bar. The barman says, "Sorry, we don't serve food in here.

And in the stock market today, helium was up, feathers were down. Paper was stationary.

The French restaurant had five dishwashing basins. They were known as the kitchen cinq.

When ceiling fans were invented, they were considered revolutionary.

How do you get down from an elephant?
You don't, you get down from a goose.

Scientists may come, and scientists may go, but Ampere's name will always be current.

If Friar Tuck, while attending divinity school, had gotten Ph.D.s in both comparative theologies and Greek philosophy, would he then have graduated as a really deep, fat friar...?

The manager of the opera house couldn't find the key, so he had to break into song.

When a clock is hungry, does it go back four seconds?

Did you hear about the mathematician who turned off his heating because he wanted to be cold and calculating?

I have kleptomania, but when it gets bad I take something for it.

What do you get when you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by it's diameter?
Pumpkin Pi.

What did the papa buffalo say to the baby buffalo before he went to work?
"Bison".

Sign at a nudist camp:
Sorry - Clothed for Winter.

My teacher always used to tell me that double negatives are a real no-no.

If love is blind and marriage is an institution, does that mean that marriage is an institution for the blind?

Love means never winning at tennis.

You know, two psychics are just a pair-a-normal people.

A university student fell in love, and dropped out of school to marry her young love. She wrote to her parents to say that she had put the heart before the course.

Illuminated golf courses were invented for people who liked swinging nightclubs.

A good carpenter will do his work and then varnish without a trace.

I bought a smoking jacket and a blazer at a fire sale.

If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?

Headline: Bear takes over Disneyland in Pooh D'Etat!

There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win.
Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused his dentist's Novocain during root canal work?
He wanted to transcend dental medication.

What do you call Santa's helpers?
Subordinate Clauses.

A three-legged dog walks into a saloon in the Old West. He slides up to the bar and announces: "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw."

Two silkworms were in a race. They ended up in a tie.

Then there was the ship carrying red paint that collided with another carrying blue paint.
What happened? Both crews were marooned.

To err is human; to moo bovine.

A man worked at an orange juice factory, but he was canned because he couldn't concentrate.

Another poor soul worked at a company making blankets. He lost his job when the company folded.

Feudalism: It's your Count that votes.

Friction. It's such a drag. And gravity sucks too.

http://puzzles.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=puzzles&cdn=hobbies&tm=18&gps=56_7_1276_604&f=00&su=p445.92.150.ip_&tt=14&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.badpuns.com/  retrieved 3/22/08

PLEASE NOTE: I did not write anything from "Spoonerisms" to this point.  They are copyrighted by their individual authors (assuming their authors are individuals), whose identities I do not know. 

About.com Copyright Notice: Site layout and design Copyright by Simon Champion; The Pun-ter cartoons Copyright by Simon Champion; Other cartoons Copyright their respective authors; Text jokes are mostly often-repeated, but some may be individually credited to the submitter if requested (nb: this only applies to longer jokes; not one-liners, etc).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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