When is a Door Not a Door? PUNS!

When is a Door
not a Door?
When it’s a
JAR!

And you knew it was coming eventually! My propensity (proPUNsity!) for puns and wordplay! SPOILER ALERT – you might groan at some of them!

Full Disclosure: I am always trying to think of puns, much to the consternation of my family, friends and colleagues! 

DOUBLE Full Disclosure: So many puns to cook up, so little thyme for them all! Deal with it!

By definition a pun is:

PUN (Dictionary.com)
Noun: the humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; a play on words.
the word or phrase used in this way.
Verb: (used without object), punned, pun·ning.
to make puns.

Pun (Merriam-Webster)
Noun: Definition of pun (Entry 1 of 2)
: the usually humorous use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more of its meanings or the meaning of another word similar in sound
Verb: punned; punning
Definition of pun (Entry 2 of 2)
intransitive verb: to make puns

Even Wikipedia has a Pun entry! And no, I did not contribute to it!

And as William Shakespeare said, ‘Aye, there’s the rub“, which comes from perhaps his most famous soliliqoy in Hamlet, you know … the one about a pair of bees!

And the ‘rub’ part Ole Bill is referencing is in the Merriam-Webster definition which includes the two words “usually humorous“! And thus the punishment begins!

Why Do Puns Make People Groan? “Puns are threatening because puns reveal the arbitrariness of meaning, and the layers of nuance that can be packed onto a single word,” 

Word Nerd: Ode to the pun — ‘the lowest form of humour …’ Puns have been much maligned by a host of commentators. Freud described puns as “cheap,” and Oliver Wendell Holmes assailed them as “verbicide.” …. Punning has been a language fixture through the ages. 

And that is very true! The greatest Punster of ALL TIME is … William Shakespeare!

And there are even some particularly punny NUMBERS as well! The punnist number of all time is ‘288‘. Why should this number NEVER be mentioned in conversation? Because it is two gross.

But even puns can be ruined by the nature of their origin or their historical context. And that includes Ole Bill too with a very saucy pun … at the time!

Romeo and Juliet, Prologue:
“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes,
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life.”

The word ‘loins’ would originally have been pronounced the same as ‘lines’.
This pun refers to the fatal blood lines of Romeo and Juliet – the families that they descended from are the reason for their death, as well as their ‘loins’ (their physical relationship).

Kinda ‘runes’ the moment when any joke is dissected …. or explained! Sheesh! Get with the program, Bill!

In my o-pun-ion, puns are the highest level of .. funny! I admit, they don’t always work, but when they dew, the subsequent tsunami of rolling eyes, repressed rage and ‘Get thee to a winery!” looks are worth it! 

A specialized sub-set of puns are Dad Jokes! Yup, I qualify there too! Nothing better than getting an eye roll from my daughter! It is in every Dad Job Description and we have to meet all our Dad obligations!

Star Trek, Star Wars and just about any pop culture media is rife with puns, memes and running jokes! Although how a Horta runs is Star Trek:Beyond me!

And who can argue with Obi-Pun-Kenobi!

 

And I even own a book on puns, entitled ‘Upon the Pun” …. a crisp analysis of verbal and visual ambiguities … extremely entertaining anthology of frightful jokes ….”

I can lend it to anyone …. anyone? anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

 

 

 

And of course, computers are not immune to puns and jokes, in fact, some of the best jokes are technology based!

How am I with PowerPoint?
You could say I Excel at it.

That one even made ME cringe … but Full Disclosure: I still intend to use it one day! BEWARE!

 

OH, and I could go on, but I better knot!

Enjoy!

  1. Why Do Puns Make People Groan?
  2. Word Nerd: Ode to the pun — ‘the lowest form of humour …’
  3. Shakespearean Puns
  4. 20 SHAKESPEARE PUNS: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE AWFUL
  5. 15 of History’s Greatest Puns
  6. 99 Funniest Dad Jokes
  7. Fourteen Computer Puns That Only Tech Heads Will Understand
  8. 25 Computer Puns That Will LAN You In A Pool Of Laughter
  9. The 10 Best Dad Jokes In Shakespeare
  10. Computer Puns

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics! 

    ENJOY!
       
     
  TTFN!

 

 

 

 

 

A Song Made Entirely
of Puns

73 Bad Puns
in 5 Minutes

Dad Jokes You Laugh You Lose
Will Ferrell vs Mark Wahlberg

Short, Clean Jokes & Puns
Get a Laugh Every Time

10 Best Puns
of All Time

 

1, 2, 3, . . . . or My Favourite Language Lesson of All Time!

1, 2, 3, …..
or
My Favourite Language Lesson
of All Time!

Count for me. Yes, count for me. Simple question. Or … is it? Okay, I will ask you to count for me again. Did you repeat your answer or did you ….. count differently? 

Full Disclosure: I have used this lesson in classes that I have taught from Elementary to Junior High/Middle School to Senior High – and even on university students!

DOUBLE Full Disclosure: I never tire of this lesson! And maybe, just maybe, you can win a bar bet with it! I haven’t myself, but you might!

TRIPLE Full Disclosure: Is anyone counting my … Full Disclosures?
 

What was your response? Nearly 100% of the time, the response will be “1, 2, 3, 4, 5 …..” and then a bit of a hesitation! I neither prompt, direct, encourage or judge the response!

At the point of hesitation, I repeat the request, ‘Count for me”.  Now, about 50% of the time, I get the same response, but the fascinating part of this is that now, I can get a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT RESPONSE!

“10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ….” and then it usually ends with ‘ZERO’ or ‘BLASTOFF!

“2, 4, 6, 8, 10, …..”  or “5, 10, 15, 20, 25, …”

Or it could be counting that totally surprise me! And that happened this morning, as you will see below, but first, a bit of techy, geeky, codey stuff!

You now need to see the ‘new language’ (code) that I was introducing to my computer science class at the time.

I used this BASIC lesson to describe perhaps the simplest and yet MOST COMPLEX cognitive task possible! COUNTING! Yes, I am oversimplifying this! But my ultimate purpose of this lesson was to teach problem solving, coding and a new language!

Consider the following BASIC programming code, from my old RAM chips:

FOR I=1 to 10
     PRINT I
     I=I+1
NEXT I

So not only is it basic, it is BASIC which is short for:

 

Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

 

Okay, so maybe my dredged up BASIC programming skills are not perfect! But that is what I ‘remember’ showing students how to program a computer to …”COUNT”! YOU just did the exact same thing when I asked YOU to … COUNT!

There were FOUR CRITICAL PREMISES you INSTANTLY, and it is an INSTANT response, that your required to complete my request, and I did not tell you ANY of them!

    1. Where to START counting
    2. How much to INCREMENT your counting by
    3. Where to END counting
    4. Method of output

So, the basic 1,2,3, 4, 5 …..
Start at 1
Say outloud

Increment by +1
Stop … where ?

So simple, yet so complex!

So I enacted a small social/digital/Teams experiment this morning. I asked 3 of my colleagues, via Teams, to ….’Count for me’. That is all. I prepped them by asking them to respond quickly, automatically and instantly. And the results were:

  1. 1 (delay)          2 (delay)          3 (delay)         24 (delay)       249
  2. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…
  3. in Japanese

ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC RESPONSES! Thanks to ALL of you for your responses! Totally surprised me too with the never before seen responses! And we used TEAMS TOO! AWESOME!

I then asked them to count for me … AGAIN! And got this:

  1. lightning storm gif (brainstorming!)
  2. C, XC, LXXX, LXX, LX, L
  3. hehe …. good topic …..

THEY CHANGED THEIR UNDERLYING PREMISES!

I only have quasi-super powers, but I successfully managed to change the premises of counting for 3 of my colleagues in less than 5 minutes! LOL! Fortunately I have chosen to use my super powers for good, not evil!

The hardest premise to learn, is always the method of output!

I usually turn the tables on students by asking THEM to ask ME … to count! And I change one thing .. DRAMATICALLY!

I usually go to the chalkboard (yeah, old school, literally!) and ‘OUTPUT’ my response with chalk … and in some sequence they were not expecting, such as starting at ZERO and going NEGATIVE “ZERO, -10, -20, -30, …..” Output could be verbal, printed, sign language, tapping toes, sound … ANYTHING that could convey the output!

Who counts in negative numbers? COMPUTERS CAN! Or even counting the slices of pizza that are rapidly disappearing in the CHD kitchen after extra pizza boxes brought down by Marcus after a big meeting! LOL!

FOR PIZZASLICESLEFT = 34
     CONSUME 1 PIZZASLICESLEFT QUICKLY
     PIZZASLICESLEFT = PIZZASLICESLEFT – 1
NEXT PIZZASLICESLEFT UNTIL NEXT MEETING

Apologies to BASIC ! I am so embarassed, I might just have to … TURTLE this one out!!

So, hopefully I have made you think a little differently the next time someone asks you to count how many people are in the lineup at Mystic to get a slice of pizza or how many computers just arrived in shipping! 

Enjoy!

  1. Counting
  2. History of ancient numeral systems
  3. The History of Counting
  4. The Mathematics of Counting
  5. A brief history of numbers and counting
  6. When did humans first learn to count?
  7. Counting – History, fingers counting, the tally system
  8. Early Counting Systems
  9. 40 Facts About Numbers That Will Make You Feel Like a Mathematical Genius
  10. Number Facts
  11. Who’s Counting?
  12. FUN FACTS ABOUT NUMBERS
  13. Numberphile (YouTube videos)
  14. Googol , no not … Google

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics! 

    ENJOY!
       
     
  TTFN!

 

 

 

 

 

A Brief History of
Numerical Systems
Allesandra King – TED Talks

History of
Mathematics

Base 12
Numberphile

58 and Other
Confusing Numbers – Numberphile

The Opposite of
∞ Infinity ∞ – Numberphile

6 Things You Didn’t Know
About Numbers – TED Talks

 

Hairless Egyptian Cats or Les chats égyptiens glabres or 毛 の な い エ ジ プ ト の 猫 が 屋 上 に い て 、 GOOGLE TRANSLATE

Hairless Egyptian Cats
or
Les chats égyptiens glabres
or

or
GOOGLE TRANSLATE . . . 

What Could Go Wrong?!

Yeah, no. Not really. Almost. Maybe. Maybe not … what? Really? Ah, the joys of using Google Translate!

Full Disclosure: I use the analog version of Google Translate during the summer for French Immersion (La Maison Française)! Basically, Corn Flakes French! Each side of a Corn Flakes box has English/French and … just get rid of the smallest words … and you have a PERFECT TRANSLATION! And a breakfast too!

DOUBLE Full Disclosure: I TOTALLY use Google Translate for reading blogs, and any other websites or languages, into English. Not perfect, often hilarous, but definitely readable! A good tool!

Google Translate is like the first line from Charles Dickens ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ – It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” and as famous as that line is, the next line is quite appropriate too, “it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness” and that can sometimes sum up technology too.

Just a brief search this morning on Google Translate bring up all kinds of different opinions – good, bad, indifferent. Not too much of a surprise there. GT is a useful tool in my opinion. Not to be completely or totally relied upon, but useful nonetheless.

Many years ago, I remember teaching a Beginner’s Computer Science course at night. And one topic was always how computers do the wrong thing. Apart from the discussion that computers only do what the programmer coded, the one actual event (apparently) was when a computer transation program was used at an Engineering Symposium and all of a sudden, the transcript included the term ‘Water Sheep‘. And it wasn’t wrong! It was a literal translation of … HYDRAULIC RAMS! It was right in a computer codey kind of way! Helpful? Not so much! LOL!

So, the title of this post will … kinda make sense, with the following Google Translation screen grabs! I made up a silly sentence: 

The hairless Egyptian Cats are on the roof
downloading FireFox for their Macbook laptops.

Yeah, a bit silly, but useful! And the actual TITLE as used by WordPress, did not display the Japanese characters! Nor did it show them IN the body of this post! So how did I get them to appear? I used the Snipping tool to turn the text into an image! A trick is all!

And using Snipping, I was able to grab each Google Translate screen, going from English to French AND THEN BACK! Also English to Japanese AND THEN BACK! 

So, not too bad! In fact, I double-checked with a colleague and the Japanese translation BACK to English was quite close to the original context. 

AND, GT will translate ENTIRE WEBPAGES! Just copy and past the URL of the source language into the translation box, select English (or any language!) and GT will produce a clickable, bookmarkable URL for you to add to your Favourites! Very easy and useful!

Many blogs now add a Translation Widget, so link to the original blog, and then just choose the language Widget and it just works! Very cool!

And I just added it TO THIS BOG BLOG! I hadn’t even checked to see if it was here! AND IT IS! Learn something new each day! YAY! This feature will now be at the very top right hand corner on all posts. And my coffee buddy, Nik, can now read my blog in GREEK!

And there is also mobile device technology too! You can use your camera to translate languages on signs or menus!

Google Translate’s instant camera feature will now make translating a foreign street sign as easy as aiming your phone — even if your native language isn’t English ….. All told, there are 60 new languages in its list of supported languages for instant camera, including Arabic, Hindi, Malay, Thai and Vietnamese. This adds up to a grand total of 88 languages users can translate from by pointing their camera’s lens at the text. 

That is actually amazing! Part Scanner. Part Google Translate. Part Dictionary. Part Internet. Part …. United Nations, all in the palm of your hand!

And I leave you with the usual links about the topic of the day! Use Google Translate, it is much better than when I first started using it!

Enjoy!

  1. 139 Translation Fails That Will Have You Rolling On The Floor Laughing
  2. Funny mistranslations from around the world
  3. The Funniest Examples of Translation Gone Wrong
  4. 15 Google Translate Fails That Will Make You Never Trust Computers Again
  5. THE PROS AND CONS OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE VS. PROFESSIONAL TRANSLATION
  6. Google Translate Still Misses the Mark
  7. Google Translate’s camera now works with more than 100 languages
  8. Translator Fun
  9. Google Translate Fails (YouTube)

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics! 

    ENJOY!
       
     
  TTFN!

 

 

 

 

 

Google Translates Explains
How to Wash Your Hands

Google Translate DESTROYS
Your Favourite Movies

Bilingual People
Versus Google Translate

Bilingual People
Versus Google Translate #2