One of the roles in Toastmasters (I’m in Wellington’s Collider group) is Grammarian.
I had that function recently and was asked to introduce the word ‘lexophile’, an expression I’d never heard of before.
A lexophile is a lover of words, finding enjoyment in word play, anagrams, palindromes and the like.
While researching the term, not surprisingly I came upon some amusing examples (which were also described to me as ‘dad jokes’).
Here’s a wee list. Which ones take your fancy?
- A bicycle can’t stand alone; it is two tired.
- A will is a dead giveaway.
- Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
- A backward poet writes inverse.
- In a democracy it’s your vote that counts; in feudalism, it’s your Count that votes.
- A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.
- If you don’t pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.
- With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
- Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I’ll show you A-flat miner.
- When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
- The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.
- A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.
- You are stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.
- Local Area Network in Australia : The LAN down under.
- He broke into song because he couldn’t find the key.
- A calendar’s days are numbered.
- A lot of money is tainted: ‘Taint yours, and ‘taint mine.
- A boiled egg is hard to beat.
- He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
- A plateau is a high form of flattery.
- The short fortune teller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.
- Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
- When you’ve seen one shopping center you’ve seen a mall.
- If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.
- When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she’d dye.
- Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
- Santa’s helpers are subordinate clauses.
- Acupuncture: a jab well done.
- Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet.
- The roundest knight at king Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.
- I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.
- She was only a whisky maker, but he loved her still.
- A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.
- The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.
- No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.
- A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
- Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.
- A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.
- Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
- Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, ‘You stay here, I’ll go on a head.’
- I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.
- A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: ‘Keep off the Grass.’
- A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, ‘No change yet.’
- The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
- When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.
- Don’t join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects.