All images courtesy tonystone.com

Signs of the times...

Sign in a Laundromat
AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES:
PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT

Sign in a London department store:
BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS

In an office:
WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY
PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN

In an office:
AFTER TEA BREAK STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT
AND STAND UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD

Outside a secondhand shop:
WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING - BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES ETC.
WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?

Notice in health food shop window:
CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS

Spotted in a safari park:
ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR

Seen during a conference:
FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN'T KNOW IT,
THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE FIRST FLOOR

Notice in a field:
THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE,
BUT THE BULL CHARGES

Message on a leaflet:
IF YOU CANNOT READ, THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET LESSONS

Sign on a repair shop door:
WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING.
(PLEASE KNOCK HARD ON THE DOOR - THE BELL DOESN'T WORK)

Spotted in a toilet in a London office block:
TOILET OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW


A LAWYER NAMED STRANGE

A lawyer named Strange died, and his friend asked the tombstone maker to inscribe on his tombstone, "Here lies Strange, an honest man, and a lawyer." The inscriber insisted that such an inscription would be confusing, for passersby would tend to think that three men were buried under the stone. However he suggested an alternative: He would inscribe, "Here lies a man who was both honest and a lawyer. "That way, whenever anyone walked by the tombstone and read it, they would be certain to remark: "That's Strange!"


One Line Groaners ......

Did you hear about the dyslexic Satanist?
He sold his soul to Santa.

Hear about the guy who lost his left arm and leg in a car crash?
He's all right now.

How do crazy people go through the forest?
They take the psycho path.

How does a spoiled rich girl change a lightbulb?
She says, "Daddy, I want a new apartment."

What did the fish say when he hit a concrete wall?
"Dam".

What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work?
A stick.

What do you call cheese that isn't yours?
Nacho Cheese.

What kind of coffee was served on the Titanic?
Sanka.
. . . and what kind of lettuce?
Iceberg.

The difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal thermometer?
The taste.

What's the difference between roast beef and pea soup?
Anyone can roast beef.


Fun with Words

Dyslexics have more fnu

Clones are people, two

Santa's elves are just a bunch of subordinate Clauses

Ground Beef: A Cow With No Legs

A waist is a terrible thing to mind

Anything free is worth what you pay for it

Atheism is a non-prophet organization

Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

Gene Police: YOU.. Out of the pool!

Help stamp out and eradicate superfluous redundancy

I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not sure

Rap is to music what Etch-a-Sketch is to art

IRS - Be audit you can be!


TRAP A POLAR BEAR

There was an eskimo that always wanted to trap a polar bear. He tried many different methods but none of them seemed to work very well. One day, a man told him that he had a sure-fire way to catch a polar bear.

"First" he said, "you cut a big hole in the ice. It needs to be big enough to fit the bear into. Then, you line up green peas around the hole and make a trail of peas leading up to the hole as bait. This is how you catch him... When the polar bear comes to take a pea you kick him in the icehole."


Fun with words, Check out how these anagrams work out

Dormitory ---- Dirty Room

Evangelist ---- Evil's Agent

Desperation ---- A Rope Ends It

The Morse Code ---- Here Come Dots

Slot Machines ---- Cash Lost in 'em

Animosity ---- Is No Amity

Mother-in-law ---- Woman Hitler

Snooze Alarms ---- Alas! No More Z's

The Public Art Galleries ---- Large Picture Halls, I Bet

A Decimal Point ---- I'm a Dot in Place

The Earthquakes ---- That Queer Shake

Eleven plus two ---- Twelve plus one

Contradiction ---- Accord not in it

The grand finale:
PRESIDENT CLINTON OF THE USA Can be rearranged (with no letters left over, and using each letter only once) into: TO COPULATE HE FINDS INTERNS


Modern Definitions

BEAUTY PARLOR:
A place where women curl up and dye.

CANNIBAL:
Someone who is fed up with people.

CHICKENS:
The only animals you eat before they are born and after they are dead.

COMMITTEE:
A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.

GOSSIP:
A person who will never tell a lie if the truth will do more damage.

HANDKERCHIEF:
Cold Storage.

INFLATION:
Cutting money in half without damaging the paper.

SECRET:
Something you tell to one person at a time.

YAWN:
An honest opinion openly expressed.

TOMORROW:
One of the greatest labor saving devices of today.


Lost in translation (Collection of Silvia)

Cracking an international market is a goal of most growing corporations. It shouldn't be that hard, yet even the big multi-nationals run into trouble because of language and cultural differences. For example...

The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, "ko-kou-ko-le," which can be loosely translated as "happiness in the mouth."

In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead."

Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."

The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem - Feeling Free," got translated in the Japanese market into "When smoking Salem, you feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty."

When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, it was apparently unaware that "no va" means "it won't go." After the company figured out why it wasn't selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to the Caribe.

Ford had a similar problem in Brazil when the Pinto flopped. The company found out that Pinto was Brazilian slang for "tiny male genitals". Ford pried all the nameplates off and substituted Corcel, which means horse.

When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." However, the company mistakenly thought the Spanish word "embarazar" meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that "It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."

An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of the desired "I Saw the Pope" in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed "I Saw the Potato."

Chicken-man Frank Perdue's slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken," got terribly mangled in another Spanish translation. A photo of Perdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over Mexico with a caption that explained "It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused."

Hunt-Wesson introduced its Big John products in French Canada as Gros Jos before finding out that the phrase, in slang, means "big breasts." In this case, however, the name problem did not have a noticeable effect on sales.

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno mag.

In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into Schweppes Toilet Water.

Japan's second-largest tourist agency was mystified when it entered English-speaking markets and began receiving requests for unusual sex tours. Upon finding out why, the owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist Company changed its name.

In an effort to boost orange juice sales in predominantly continental breakfast eating England, a campaign was devised to extol the drink's eye-opening, pick-me-up qualities. Hence the slogan, "Orange juice. It gets your pecker up."


Traveling in India (Collection of Silvia)

The following item was extracted from the travel section of a UK daily newspaper:

Travelling in India is an almost hallucinatory potion of sound, spectacle and experience. It is frequently heart-rending, sometimes hilarious, mostly exhilarating, always unforgettable - and, when you are on the roads, extremely dangerous.

Most Indian road users observe a version of the Highway Code based on an ancient text. These 12 rules of the Indian road are published for the first time in English.

ARTICLE I The assumption of immortality is required of all road users.

ARTICLE II The following precedence must be accorded at all times. In descending order, give way to: cows, elephants, heavy trucks, buses, official cars, camels, light trucks, buffalo, Jeeps, ox-carts, private cars, motorcycles, scooters, auto-rickshaws, pigs, pedal rickshaws, goats, bicycles (goods-carrying), handcarts, bicycles (passenger-carrying), dogs, pedestrians.

ARTICLE III All wheeled vehicles shall be driven in accordance with the maxim: to slow is to falter, to brake is to fail, to stop is defeat. This is the Indian drivers' mantra.

ARTICLE IV Use of horn (also known as the sonic fender or aural amulet): Cars (IV,1,a-c): Short blasts (urgent) indicate supremacy, i.e. in clearing dogs, rickshaws and pedestrians from path. Long blasts (desperate) denote supplication, to oncoming truck, "I am going too fast to stop, so unless slow down we shall both die". In extreme cases this may be accompanied by flashing of headlights (frantic). Single blast (casual) means "I have seen someone out of India's 870 million whom I recognize", "There is a bird in the road (which at this speed could go through my windscreen)" or "I have not blown my horn for several minutes." Trucks and buses (IV,2,a): All horn signals have the same meaning, viz, "I have an all-up weight of approximately 12.5 tons and have no intention of stopping, even if I could." This signal may be emphasized by the use of headlamps (insouciant). Article IV remains subject to the provision of Order of Precedence in Article II above.

ARTICLE V All manoeuvres, use of horn and evasive action shall be left until the last possible moment.

ARTICLE VI In the absence of seat belts (which there is), car occupants shall wear garlands of marigolds. These should be kept fastened at all times.

ARTICLE VII Rights of way: Traffic entering a road from the left has priority. So has traffic from the right, and also traffic in the middle. Lane discipline (VII,1): All Indian traffic at all times and irrespective of direction of travel shall occupy the centre of the road.

ARTICLE VIII Roundabouts: India has no roundabouts. Apparent traffic islands in the middle of crossroads have no traffic management function. Any other impression should be ignored.

ARTICLE IX Overtaking is mandatory. Every moving vehicle is required to overtake every other moving vehicle, irrespective of whether it has just overtaken you. Overtaking should only be undertaken in suitable conditions, such as in the face of oncoming traffic, on blind bends, at junctions and in the middle of villages/city centres. No more than two inches should be allowed between your vehicle and the one you are passing - and one inch in the case of bicycles or pedestrians.

ARTICLE X Nirvana may be obtained through the head-on crash.

ARTICLE XI Reversing: no longer applicable since no vehicle in India has reverse gear.

ARTICLE XII The 10th incarnation of God was as an articulated tanker.