Entertainment

My company had a successful year, and at the annual meeting, employees eagerly awaited the general manager's report on the performance of our branch. 

"You are the role models of our company," he proudly announced.  "I can tell you that whenever the owners talk about you and your office, they use nothing but expletives." 

A stunned silence followed.

Then the manager blushed, cleared his throat, and added,

"I meant superlatives."

After buying her kids a pet hamster, after they PROMISED they would take care of it, Mom, as usual, ended up with the responsibility.

One evening, exasperated, she asked them, "How many times do you think that hamster would have died if I hadn't looked after it?"

After a moment, her youngest son replied quizzically, "Once?"

It drives me nuts that so many people have abandoned basic English in their e-mailing and online messaging.  Don't get me wrong.  I am no master of the English language and I am not one of those grammar snobs who have given up being polite to people in the the zealous quest for the proper use of semi-colons. But I still like to have the odd period thrown into text communications to allow me to know when to stop one thought and begin another.

I am also a little leary about the shortening of words by removing letters in order to save time.  For instance "im sry i dnt pss eng n sc so i tp ts wy" is far to vague to leave up to my imaginative mind (my guess would be "I'm sorry I didn't pass English in school so I type this way").

Again, I don't want to be fanatical about all of this.  Sometimes taking letters from words can be fun.  For instance, what 9 letter word in the English language continues to form another word each time you remove a letter from it?  At least I think that's how the question goes - remember I'm no master in these things.

In my English-as-a-second-language class, I explained the difference between a watch and a clock. 

I told the students that when it was a large timepiece on a wall and not attached to your body, it was called a clock and when it was worn on your body that it was called a watch.

A few days later we had a power outage, and our classroom clocks had not been reset. 

I asked Luis, who was wearing a wristwatch, for the time. 

Luis looked at his wrist, and then confidently announced,

"It is exactly ten o'watch."