Encyclopedia of Humor

Newsreader, BBC Radio 4: “Working mothers are the backbone of the third half of the economy.”

Glenda Jackson, Channel 4 TV: “There’s nothing athletes like – or indeed hate – more than hanging around like this.” – David Coleman, BBC 1 TV

“Not being in the Rumbelows Cup for those teams won’t mean a row of beans, ‘cos that’s only small potatoes.” – Ian St John, ITV

“Oldham are leading 1-0, a well deserved victory at this stage of the game.” – Tommy Docherty, Picadilly Radio

Brian Johnson, BBC Radio 3: “We don’t appear to have Jim Fish on the line at the moment.”

“Are there any more great swimmers in the pipeline?” – Cliff Morgan, BBC Radio 4

“Andre Vandapole has four silver medals in cyclocross, and none of them gold.” – Phil Liggott, Channel 4 TV

“Well, I shall remember that catch for many a dying day.”

“The effects are fleeting and lingering…” – Overheard in a hallway

“In Managua, people are cheering in the streets, which are deserted.” – CBS reporter during the solar eclipse

“A trucker called to thank all of the courteous Seattle drivers he had run across.” – Announcer on KZOK radio

“He threw 110 pitches in six innings, and that’s a mouthful!” – CBS baseball announcer

“An agreement is not an agreement until the parties to the agreement have reached an agreement.” – Irish Politician on RTE radio

“This is the biggest pawn that Israel holds in the whole hostage equation.” – BBC world service.

“We have two incredibly credible witnesses here.” – Sen. Biden at Thomas hearings from Bob Ericson (Marlboro, MA, USA)

“He’s going to step down ’til he’s back on his feet.” – Vermont Public Radio commentator on Jimmy Swaggart’s latest sex scandal

It is often cited that there are half as many divorces as marriages in the US, so one concludes that average marriages have a 50% chance of ending by divorce. While I was a graduate student, among my peers there were twice as many divorces as marriages, leading us to conclude that average marriages would end twice…

A shoeseller meets a mathematician and complains that he does not know what size shoes to buy. “No problem,” says the mathematician, “there is a simple equation for that,” and he shows him the Gaussian normal distribution. The shoeseller stares some time at het equation and asks, “What is that symbol?” “That is the Greek letter pi.” “What is pi?” “That is the ratio between the circumference and the diameter of a circle.” Upon this the shoeseller cries out: “What does a circle have to do with shoes?!”

Math problems? Call 1-800-[(10x)(13i)^2]-[sin(xy)/2.362x].

If parallel lines meet at infinity – infinity must be a very noisy place with all those lines crashing together!

Maths Teacher: Now suppose the number of sheep is x…
Student: Yes sir, but what happens if the number of sheep is not x?

Zenophobia: the irrational fear of convergent sequences.

Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules. Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives.

If I had only one day left to live, I would live it in my statistics class: it would seem so much longer.