Ret's ESL Jokes: M

Showing posts with label M. Show all posts

Friday 5 June 2020

military cops

𝔸 soldier ran up to a nun. Out of breath, he asked, "Please, Sister, may I hide under your skirt. I’ll explain later."

The nun agreed… and a moment later two Military Cops ran up and asked, "Sister, have you seen a soldier go by here?" The nun replied, "He went that way."

After the Military Cops had turned the corner, the soldier crawled out from under her skirt and said, "I can’t thank you enough, Sister. You see, I don’t want to go to Iraq."

The nun said, "I understand completely."

The soldier added, "I hope I’m not being rude, but you have a great pair of legs!"

The nun replied, "If you had looked a little higher, you would have seen a great pair of something else. I don’t want to go to Iraq either."

"The last word in the punchline is what we're going to focus on, the word "either." Its mirror image is the negative "neither." In the case of this joke, "either" is used to show a similarity or an agreement with a statement that has just been made [...est utilisé pour montrer une similitude ou un accord avec une déclaration qui vient d'être faite]. If you said "She doesn't like Michael Jackson," I might say, "I don't like him either." Perhaps an explanatory table will help us understand more easily. Notice the consistent use of the auxiliary verb here.

Negative Sentence	Agreeing	Affirmative Sentence	Agreeing
I don't smoke	I don't smoke either	I [do] smoke	So do I
She can't swim	I can't swim either	She can swim	So can I
We mustn't call	He mustn't call either	They've finished	So have you
I will not do it	Tim won't do it either	Jim may leave	So may Jane

rethabile-masilo.net

Try this quiz

Wednesday 13 May 2020

mayday

𝕋he private jet had taken off quite typically and had been flying for a while when suddenly one of the engines popped.

The plane went into a loop, then lost altitude. Flames were now visible from the bad engine.

"Mayday! Mayday!" the pilot screamed into his mic. "May Day!"

No answer. The aircraft went into another loop and started trembling. The smell of smoke had by now infested the cabin.

The pilot held on and after a few explosions in the rear, managed to land the private jet at Mcghee Tyson Airport, the nearest airport.

Midgets started coming down the evacuation slide.

One of the airport guards, who was watching the scene with a colleague, exclaimed: "I’ve never seen a plane that carried only midgets!"

His friend looked at him and said, "Those aren't midgets. Those are the Trumps, with the shit scared out of them."

There's an expression you may not be familiar with, here. When someone startles you, scares you, you might say... "You scared the shit out of me!" It is the equivalent of foutre la trouille, foutre les jetons, faire chier dans son froc (littéralement), or ficher la frousse, in French. But it remains colloquial, like in French, and should not be used in certain circles. Literally it is: you frightened me so much that I shit myself.

"Mayday" is a distress call that apparently comes from the French "m'aider", or "help me". I haven't checked whether that is so or not.

Monday 11 May 2020

movie theatre

𝔸 guy sits down in a movie theatre and notices that the man in front of him has brought his dog, and it's sitting in the seat next to him. He thinks it's unusual, but he likes dogs so he decides that as long as it's not a distraction he won't mention it.

The movie starts and pretty soon there's a funny part.

The dog makes some low yapping sounds that sound like laughter.

Soon there's a sad part and the dog appears to be sobbing.

This continues throughout the film and the man sitting behind the dog is gobsmacked. When the lights come up he taps the dog's owner on the shoulder and tells him, "I gotta tell you, and I know it sounds bizarre, but it seemed like your dog really enjoyed this movie."

The dog owner looks at the dog and nods. "I know, it really is strange," he says, "Because he really hated the book."

In French we use the verb "sembler" to express whether we think something is tasty, or loud, or good, etc. Cela me semble gouteux, fort, bon, etc. In English we use the verbs of the senses: it sounds loud, it looks good, it feels cold, etc, like the man says the yapping of the dog "sounds" like laughter.

Thursday 30 April 2020

medical convention

𝔸t a medical convention, a male doctor and a female doctor start eyeing each other. The male doctor asks her to dinner and she accepts.

As they sit down in the restaurant, she excuses herself to go and wash her hands. After dinner, one thing leads to another and they end up in her hotel bedroom.

Just as things get hot, the lady doctor interrupts and says she has to go and wash her hands. When she comes back they go at it again. Afterwards, she gets up and says she is going to wash her hands.

As she comes back the male doctor says, "I bet you are a surgeon". She confirms and asks how he knew. "Easy, you're always washing your hands."

She then says, "I bet you're an anaesthesiologist."
Male doctor: "Wow, how did you guess?"
Female doctor: "I didn't feel a thing."

Two things to keep in mind here. First, the use of the preposition "at". Remember that we use it to position someone or something, and that it's small and precise. "At a medical convention" places the two doctors at the event. We know that they're at the convention centre. It's like saying "at home". Grammatically, that's precise. Your home is a point, small and precise. Smaller and more precise than "in the kitchen" which, grammatically, is bigger and less precise. Secondly, the word "afterwards". You can't use "after", here, because "after" needs to be followed by something: after what?

Saturday 18 April 2020

macho man

𝔸 typical macho man married a young, beautiful woman and, after the wedding, established the following rules:

"I'll come back home when I want, if I want, and at the time I want; I don't expect any problems from you. But I expect a big dinner, unless I tell you I won't be home for dinner. I'll go hunting, fishing, drinking and playing cards whenever I want with my friends. Understood? Those are my rules. Any comments?"

His young and beautiful wife said, "No, I'm okay with it. Just understand that there's going to be sex here at seven o'clock every night, whether you're here or not."

No comment

mirror

𝕋his woman rushed to see her doctor, looking very much worried and all strung out.

She went: "Doctor, take a look at me. When I got up this morning I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my hair all wiry and dried out. My skin was wrinkled and pasty, my eyes were bloodshot and almost falling out of their sockets, and I had this corpse-like look on my face! What's wrong with me, Doctor!?"

The doctor looked her over for a few minutes, then calmly said: "Well, I can tell you that there's nothing wrong with your eyesight."

When you take a look at something you "jeter un coup d’œil." Lately I have heard an expression that I have never used myself, but some people use often, and it is "take a listen."

Monday 6 April 2020

museum question

𝔸 museum visitor was admiring a T-Rex skeleton, and asked a passing museum employee how old it was.

"That skeleton is sixty-five million and three years, six months and eight days old," the employee replied.

"How can you be so precise?" she asked.

"Well, when I started working here, I asked my boss that exact same question, and he said it was sixty-five million years old—and that was three years, six months and eight days ago.

"She asked a passing museum employee how old it was". This is not a question but a simple statement. Many learners have the habit of saying: "She asked a passing museum employee how old is it". Either you ask a question: "How old is it?" Or you don't.

Monday 7 February 2011

mugging

𝔸 man being mugged by two thugs managed to put up a good fight. Finally, the thugs subdued him and took his wallet.

When finding only two euros in the wallet, the surprised thug said, "Why did you put up such a good fight?"

To which the man quickly replied "I was afraid that you would find the €600 hidden in my shoe!"

We say "six hundred euros." But remember that if this were used as an adjective (adjectives generally have no 's') we would say: "It's a six-hundred-euro laptop", with no 's'. Don't hesitate to revise your adjectives here. And here's something else that's interesting... the sentence "I was afraid that you would find the €600 hidden in my shoe." That's a conditional. "If I didn't put up a good fight, you would find the money in my shoe." Don't hesitate to do a conditionals quiz at this page.