naming

𝔸 pregnant woman is in a car accident and falls into a deep coma. Asleep for nearly six months, she finally wakes up and sees that she is no longer pregnant. Frantically, she asks the doctor about her baby.

The doctor replies, "Ma'am, you had twins, actually. A boy and a girl. The babies are fine. Your brother came in and named them."

The woman thinks to herself, "Oh no, not my brother, he's such an idiot!"

Expecting the worst, she asks the doctor, "Okay, what's the girl's name?"

"Denise," Says the doctor.

The new mother thinks, "Wow, that's not a such bad name. I guess I was wrong about my brother. I like Denise." Then she asks the doctor, "What's the boy's name?"

The doctor replies, "Denephew."

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This joke hinges on sound, of course, sounds that resemble each other, in this case, "the niece" and "Denise", which gives us the opportunity to look closely at relations, relatives, for example aunts and uncles and all the different maternal and paternal in-laws. As usual, a table will help us understand better.

Your spouse	Your husband | your wife
Your spouse's family	Your family-in-law | your in-laws
Your spouse's siblings	Your brother or sister-in-law
Your spouse's parents	Your parents-in-law
Your spouse's father	your father-in-law
Your spouse's mother	your mother-in-law
Your child's husband	Your son-in-law
Your child's wife	Your daughter-in-law
Your child's children	Your grandson | granddaughter
The husband of your spouse's sister	Your co-brother
The wife of your spouse's brother	Your co-sister
The husband of your mother	Your step-father
The wife of your father	Your step-mother
The daughter of your sibling	Your niece
The son of your sibling	Your nephew
The daughter of your step-parent	Your step-sister
The son of your step-parent	Your step-brother
Someone who looks after a child not his/her own	A foster parent
Blood relation	Someone you're related to by birth
Extended family	Grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc

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near-death experience

𝔸 middle-aged woman had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital. While on the operating table she had a near-death experience.

Seeing God she asked "Is my time up"

God answered, "No, you have another 30 years, 2 months and 11 days to live."

When she recovered, the woman decided to stay in the hospital and have a facelift, liposuction, and a tummy tuck. She even had someone come in and dye her hair blonde.

Since she had so much more time to live, she figured she might as well make the most of it. After her last operation, she was discharged from the hospital. While crossing the street on her way home, she was hit by a truck and died immediately.

Arriving in front of God, she demanded, "I thought you said I had another "30 years, why didn't you pull me from out of the path of the car?"

God replied, "Because I didn't recognize you."

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When your time is up, then you are going to die soon or immediately, there's no more time left. The expression can be applied to every situation, for example in sports. The 90th minute in football, for example. Or when the bell rings at the end of an exam. And so on. Time up! 

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new parrot

𝔸 man buys a parrot and brings him home. But the parrot starts insulting him and getting nasty, so the man picks up the parrot and throws it into the freezer to teach him a lesson.

He hears the bird screeching for a few minutes, then total silence.

He opens the freezer door and the parrot walks out, looks up at him and says, "I’m sorry if I offended you, I humbly ask for your forgiveness."

The man says, "Well, that's okay. I forgive you."

The parrot then says, "If you don't mind my asking, what did the chicken do?"

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We say, "If you don't mind my + "noun" or "verb-ing". This is because we mind something, which is why we need either a noun (something) or a gerund (something). A gerund is a verb ending in "-ing" that is used like a noun. I sometimes refer to the gerund as a "nom-verbal". Look at the following sentences. In each case both are correct English. To answer positively, we say "No, I don't", which tells the speaker that they can go ahead and smoke. If we don't want them to smoke we should say "Yes, I do". Which means "yes, I mind". Which means "Please don't smoke".

Minding a gerund	Minding a verb
Do you mind my smoking?	Do you mind if I smoke?
Do you mind my telling you something?	Do you mind if I tell you something?
Do you mind his coming with us?	Do you mind if he comes with us?
If you don't mind my asking...	I hope you don't mind if I ask...

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not sure of the cause

𝔻octor: "I am not exactly sure of the cause. I think it could be due to alcohol.
Patient: "That's OK. I will come back when you are sober."

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negotiating

𝔸 woman went to the dentist's. As he leaned over to begin working on her, she grabbed his testicles.

The dentist said, "Madam, I believe you've just grabbed my testicles."

The woman replied, "Yes. We're going to be careful not to hurt each other, aren't we?"

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The dentist's: the apostrophe S here means 'at the home of', 'at the office of', 'at the workplace of', etc. In other circumstances it can be used to indicate possession; that's how it is used in the title of this blog. Check out this post on the humble apostrophe.

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