NICE TRY!
Here
are some signs and notices written in English — more or less —
that were discovered throughout the world.
In a Tokyo Hotel: Is forbidden to steal hotel towels please. If you are not a person to do such a thing is please not to read notis.
In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.
In a Leipzig elevator: Do not enter lift backwards, and only when lit up.
In a Belgrade hotel elevator: To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.
In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk.
In a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.
In a Yugoslavian hotel: The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.
In a Japanese hotel: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.
In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from Russian Orthodox monastery: You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.
In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers: Not to perambulate the corriders during the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.
On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.
On the menu of a Polish hotel: Salad a firm’s own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people’s fashion.
Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop: Ladies may have a fit upstairs.
In a Bangkok dry cleaners: Drop your trousers here for best results.
Outside a Paris dress shop: Dresses for street walking.
In a Rhodes tailor shop: Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.
From the Soviet Weekly: There will be a Moscow Exhibition of Arts by 150,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.
In a Tokyo bar: Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.
On the door of a Moscow hotel room: If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.
In a Norwegian cocktail lounge: Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.
In a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.
In the office of a Roman doctor: Specialist in women and other diseases.
In an Acapulco hotel: The manager has personally passed all the water served here.
In a Tokyo shop: Our nylons cost more than common, but you’ll find they are best in the long run.
From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner: Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.
From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo: When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.
Two signs from a Majorcan shop entrance: English well speaking / Here speeching American.
In a Zurich hotel: Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.
In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist: Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.
In a Rome laundry: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.
In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency: Take one of our horse-driven city tours — we guarantee no miscarriages.
Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand: Would you like to ride on your own ass?
In a Swiss mountain inn: Special today — no ice cream.
In a Bangkok temple: It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.
A sign posted in Germany’s Black Forest: It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.
COURTHOUSE BLOOPERS
Mary Louise Gilman, the venerable editor of the National Shorthand Reporter has collected many of the more hilarious courtroom bloopers in two books - Humor in the Court (1977) and More Humor in the Court. From Mrs. Gilman’s two volumes, here are some of my favorite transquips, all recorded by America’s keepers of the word:
Q.
Did you ever stay all night with this man in New York?
A. I refuse to answer that question.
Q. Did you ever stay all night with this man in Chicago?
A. I refuse to answer that question.
Q. Did you ever stay all night with this man in Miami?
A. No.
Q.
Now, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated?
A. By death.
Q. And by whose death was it terminated?
Q.
Doctor, did you say he was shot in the woods?
A. No, I said he was shot in the lumbar region.
Q.
What is your name?
A. Ernestine McDowell.
Q. And what is your marital status?
A. Fair.
Q.
Are you married?
A. No, I’m divorced.
Q. And what did your husband do before you divorced him?
A. A lot of things I didn’t know about.
Q.
And who is this person you are speaking of?
A. My ex-widow said it.
Q.
How did you happen to go to Dr. Cherney?
A. Well, a gal down the road had had several of her children by Dr. Cherney,
and said he was really good.
Q.
Do you know how far pregnant you are right now?
A. I will be three months November 8th.
Q. Apparently then, the date of conception was August 8th?
A. Yes.
Q. What were you and your husband doing at that time?
Q.
Mrs. Smith, do you believe that you are emotionally unstable?
A. I should be.
Q. How many times have you committed suicide?
A. Four times.
Q.
Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A. All my autopsies have been performed on dead people.
Q.
Were you acquainted with the deceased?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Before or after he died?
Q.
Officer, what led you to believe the defendant was under the influence?
A. Because he was argumentary and he couldn’t pronunciate his words.
Q.
What happened then?
A. He told me, he says, "I have to kill you because you can identify
me."
Q. Did he kill you?
A. No.
Q.
Mrs. Jones, is your appearance this morning pursuant to a deposition notice
which I sent to your attorney?
A. No. This is how I dress when I go to work.
THE COURT: Now, as we begin, I must ask you to banish all present information and prejudice from your minds, if you have any.
Q.
Did he pick the dog up by the ears?
A. No.
Q. What was he doing with the dog’s ears?
A. Picking them up in the air.
Q. Where was the dog at this time?
A. Attached to the ears.
Q.
So, after the anesthesia, when you came out of it, what did you observe
with respect to your scalp?
A. I didn’t see my scalp the whole time I was in the hospital.
Q. It was covered?
A. Yes, bandaged.
Q. Then, later on.. what did you see?
A. I had a skin graft. My whole buttocks and leg were removed and put
on top of my head.
Q.
Could you see him from where you were standing?
A. I could see his head.
Q. And where was his head?
A. Just above his shoulders.
Q.
What can you tell us about the truthfulness and veracity of this defendant?
A. Oh, she will tell the truth. She said she’d kill that sonofabitch
- and she did!
Q.
Do you drink when you’re on duty?
A. I don’t drink when I’m on duty, unless I come on duty drunk.
Q.
...any suggestions as to what prevented this from being a murder trial
instead of an attempted murder trial?
A. The victim lived.
Q.
Are you sexually active?
A. No, I just lie there.
Q.
Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
A. Yes, I have been since early childhood.
Q.
The truth of the matter is that you were not an unbiased, objective witness,
isn’t it. You too were shot in the fracas?
A. No, sir. I was shot midway between the fracas and the naval.
Q.
What is the meaning of sperm being present?
A. It indicates intercourse.
Q. Male sperm?
A. That is the only kind I know.
Q.
(Showing man picture.) That’s you?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And you were present when the picture was taken, right?
Q.
And lastly, Jimmy, all your responses must be oral. O.K.? What school
do you go to?
A. Oral.
Q. How old are you?
A. Oral.
Q.
What is your relationship with the plaintiff?
A. She is my daughter.
Q. Was she your daughter on February 13, 1979?
Q. Now, you have investigated other murders, have you not, where there was a victim?
Q.
...and what did he do then?
A. He came home, and next morning he was dead.
Q. So when he woke up the next morning he was dead?
Q.
Did you tell your lawyer that your husband had offered you indignities?
A. He didn’t offer me nothing; he just said I could have the furniture.
Q.
When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were able,
for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to go, gone
also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with him to the
station?
MR. BROOKS: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot.
Hopefully,
we can all laugh at this parody of the famous scene from The Graduate.
If we cannot laugh at ourselves, even a little, we're in a lot of trouble.
Attending a wedding for the first time, a little girl whispered to her mother, "Why is the bride dressed in white?" "Because white is the color of happiness, and today is the happiest day of her life." The child thought about this for a moment, then said, "So why is the groom wearing black?"
A little girl, dressed in her Sunday best, was running as fast as she could, trying not to be late for Bible class. As she ran she prayed, "Dear Lord, please don't let me be late! Dear Lord, please don't let me be late!" While she was running and praying, she tripped on a curb and fell, getting her clothes dirty and tearing her dress. She got up, brushed herself off, and started running again. As she ran she once again began to pray, "Dear Lord, please don't let me be late...But please don't shove me either!"
Three boys are in the school yard bragging about their fathers. The first boy says, "My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a poem, they give him $50." The second boy says, "That's nothing. My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a song, they give him $100." The third boy says, "I got you both beat. My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a sermon, and it takes eight people to collect all the money!"
An elderly woman died last month. Having never married, she requested no male pallbearers. In her handwritten instructions for her memorial service, she wrote, "They wouldn't take me out while I was alive, I don't want them to take me out when I'm dead.
A Sunday School teacher asked her class why Joseph and Mary took Jesus with them to Jerusalem. A small child replied: "They couldn't get a baby sitter."
A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds. After explaining the commandment to "honor thy father and thy mother," she asked "Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?" Without missing a beat one little boy answered, "Thou shall not kill."
At Sunday School they were teaching how God created everything, including human beings. Little Johnny seemed especially intent when they told him how Eve was created out of one of Adam's ribs. Later in the week his mother noticed him lying down as though he were ill, and said, "Johnny, what is the matter?" Little Johnny responded, "I have pain in my side. I think I'm going to have a wife."
Two boys were walking home from Sunday school after hearing a strong preaching on the devil. One said to the other, "What do you think about all this Satan stuff?" The other boy replied, "Well, you know how Santa Claus turned out. It's probably just your Dad.
A police recruit was asked during the exam, "What would you do if you had to arrest your own mother?" He said, "Call for backup."