(1) A butcher in Italy would want to put up a sign in this shop window to attract more customers. He tries to avoid using the word ‘preservatives’ in case it has any taboo connotation in English. So, he displayed a sign in Romance language (descended from Latin) saying . “Sausages made without conservatives.” The joke is that the sign did not draw much people to come into the shop. This is because in Italy, conservanti are
preservatives and preservativi are condoms.

(2) Some people would like to make jokes out of others’ poor attempts at the translation of their language into English. In hotel restaurant it was written, “The waitress will give you the bill and you may sign her on the backside.”

(3) A common joke amongst children is for one child to ask: “ What’s a baby pig called?” The response is of course “piglet”. So, what’s a baby toy
called? And the other child will say “toilet”.

(4) Here is a joke about man.
Tri-weekly
Try weekly
Try weakly

Jokes playing around with syntax

(5) A Scotsman takes all his money out of the bank once a year for a holiday; once it’s had holiday he puts it back again.

(6) Child: “Mummy, can I go out and play?”
Mother: “With those holes in your trousers?”
Child: “No, with the girl next door.”

(7) Trimmets treacle puddings have caused several people to be taken to hospital with badly scalded feet. This is because the instructions read: “Open tin and stand in boiling water for twenty minutes.”

(8) In a church hall, “Ladies are asked to rinse out teapots and stand upside down in the sink.”

(9) Advertising slogan: “Nothing acts faster than Anadin.”
Traditional response: “Then take nothing!”

(10) During a statistics lesson, the teacher says: “In Tokyo a man gets run over every five hours.” “Oh, poor thing!” remarks a pupil.”

Jokes playing around with the rules of conversation

(11) At the customs, the customer officer asks, “Cigarettes, brandy, whisky…….”
The passenger replies, “How kind you are in this country. I’ll have a coffee
please.”

(12) “You know your great great great grandfather?”
“Yeah.”
“No, you don’t, he’s dead!”

(13) “Oh Nigel, I hear you buried your mother-in-law last week.”
“Had to. She was dead.”

(14) Kenneth Rome: “Do you know anything about Professor Composture?”
Stooge: “Oh, he’s the world’s leading expert in ballistic missiles; he won last
year’s Nobel Prize in Physics and he’s head of the science department at Yales.
Why do you ask?”
Kenneth Rome: “He asked me to lend him five shillings.”

(15) “Waiter, waiter, there’s a fly in the soup!”
“Don’t worry sir, there’ll be no extra charge!”

(16) “I say, I say, I say, my dog has no nose!”
“Really! Hen how does it smell?”
“Awful!”

(17) Why is sex like a bank account?
Because as soon as you withdraw you lose interest.

(18) Beauty is skin deep, but ugly is ugly to the bone.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away but an onion a day keeps everyone away.

Source: “The Language of Jokes – Analysing Verbal Play” by Delia Chiaro. Published by Routledge, London.