Examples of Funny Grammar Mistakes

We all do it! Everyone produces grammatical misnakes, its just that
some poof reed better than others. Enjoy our collection of funny grammar
mistakes.

• Silly English Grammar
• Five Favourite
  Funny English Mistakes
• Funny Plurals in
  the English Language
• 
  Spelling Howlers and Grammatical Bloopers

Silly English Grammar

Sought: Two strong, clean youths for sausages.

Wanted: Precast concrete man.

Need: Woman to run up curtains.

Wanted: A room by two gentlemen 30 feet long and 20 feet wide.

Will and Guy’s Five Favourite Funny English Mistakes

1. Butcher’s sign: Try our sausages. None like them.
2. A tailor’s guarantee: If the smallest hole appears
   after six months’ wear, we will make another absolutely free.
3. Lost: A small pony belonging to a young lady with a
   silver mane and tail.
4. Barber’s sign: Hair cut while you wait.
5. Lost: Wallet belonging to a young man made of calf skin

Malapropisms and Spoonerism

Most of the grammatical errors of the 21st century are careless, and
boring in comparison with the 19th century of Sheridan’s Mrs Malaprop and Mr
William Spooner, which are rich in hilarity and wit.

Malapropisms

Mrs Malaprop: thought does not become a young woman; the point we would
request of you is, that you will promise to forget this fellow — to
illiterate * him, I say, quite from your memory.

* Obliterate.  A malapropism is where you replace a word with one of
a similar sound but different meaning.

Spoonerisms

Mr Spooner: You have hissed my mystery lectures.  (You have missed
my history lessons).  With Spoonerisms you swap the first letters of
words to make real words, as a result the sentence takes a comic turn.
One side effect is that once alerted, you cannot stop making up spoonerism,
especially if the frisky is running whee.

Perhaps you have trouble remembering people’s names?  We know a
couple called Lick and Diz.

Mondegreens

There’s a bad moon on the rise as – There’s a bathroom on the right.
Hearing problem.

Just call me angel of the morning, angel; just brush my teeth before you
leave me.”  (Brush my cheek)

Five Further Funny Grammatical Errors

1. It takes many ingredients to make Burger King great
   but, the secret ingredient is our people.
2. Slow Children Crossing.
3. “Should Madonna be aloud to adopt again?”
4. Automatic washing machines. Please remove all your
   clothes when the light goes out.
5. “Elephants Please Stay In Your Car.”
   (Warning at a safari park).

Funny Plurals
In the English Language

We’ll begin with a box and the plural is boxes.
But the plural of ox
should be oxen, not oxes.

The one fowl is a goose but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of
moose should never be meese.

You may found a lone mouse or a whole set of mice,
Yet the plural of
house is houses not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of
pan be called pen?

If I speak of a foot and you show me your feet,
And I give you a boot,
would a pair be called beet?

If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why should not the plural
of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural
wouldn’t be hose.
And the plural of cat is cats and not cose.

We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say Mother,
we never say Methren,
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis and shim,
So English, I fancy you will
all agree,
Is the funniest language you ever did see.

Common Mistakes in English Grammar

Apostrophe ‘S
It’s / Its

Oozing letter ‘o’
Loose lose
To Too

Letters ‘i’ and ‘e’ in a jumble
Their or there, and
even they’re

Miscellaneous
Lie / Lay
Effect / Affect

Hilarious Spelling
Howlers and Grammatical Bloopers

Funny and Hilarious Howlers from UK Academic Institutions

• University
  of Southampton: Tackling climate change will require an unpresidented
  response.
• In literature, a student of Bath Spa University teaching fellow: The
  Handmaid’s Tale shows how patriarchy treats women as escape goats.
• City University London, an economics students wrote that the failure of
  Northern Rock was due in part to the ‘laxative enforcement policies’ of the
  regulator.
• St Helens College of Art and Design – Students on the Access to Higher
  Education course were required to ‘outline the importance of the four Noble
  Truths to the Buddhist faith’, one wrote, ‘Nirvana cannot be described
  because there are no words in existence for doing so. Not non-existence
  either, it is beyond the very ideas of existing and not existing.’
• Another, asked to outline the importance of the railway in 19th Century
  Britain, said, ‘The railways were invented to bring the Irish from Dublin to
  Liverpool where they were promptly arrested for being vagrants.
• In answer to the same question, another wrote, ‘The railways were
  invented to take the weight off the motorways.’
• The University of the West of England, provided the following examples of
  student spelling howlers: Alchol instead of alcohol; whom instead of womb
  [anatomy paper]; abominous instead of abdominal.

Also from the University of the West of England, Are These 5 Grammatical
Mistakes,

1. ‘Service products are often intangible, perishable, inseparable and
   heterogenital’
2. ‘Bangkok’s notoriously girly bars attract businessmen and
   larger louts
3. ‘The Loire valley inspired the chef to cook delicacies such as
   salmon, elves and lamprey’
4. ‘Air stewardesses step into the role of
   portraying their front region, as the job requires them to.’
5. And finally: ‘Control of infectious diseases is very important in
   case an academic breaks out.’

Thanks to Rebecca Attwood at for her amusing article in Times
Higher Education Supplement which gave Will and Guy the idea to add examples
to our site.

Five Funny Medical Howlers Gleaned From The Medical Council of Canada
Entry Exam

• Federal Food and Drugs Act : Their aim is to promote purity and
  prevent adultery.
• Venereal Disease Control: Sexual intercourse is a common practice
  among all people.  Prostitutes should be registered and made civil
  servants.
• Rheumatic Fever: It is much more common in the temporal zone.”
• Carbon Monoxide Poisoning: If the amount breathed is not lethal, the
  patient has many of the symptoms of severe enema.  He is usually
  flushed and has…
• Control of Bovine Tuberculosis: All cows should have a patch test
  done.

Poor Spelling Can Amplify Grammatical Mistakes

“Separate” is the most commonly misspelt word in the English language,
according to a new study say Will and Guy

A spokesman for the market research company which carried out the study
of 3,500 Britons, told us, ‘There seem to be some words which we always
struggle to get down onto paper, and “separate” is one of those which eludes
us.

Spelling Mistake on Road Sign
for Cotswold Airport

The sign on the A429 gets the “s” and the “w” the wrong way round in Cotwsold,
it should be Cotswold.

A spelling mistake has been spotted on an official road sign for an
airport in Gloucestershire, England.

Funny Spelling Mistakes

Eye Halve a Spelling Chequer

I have a spelling checker.
It came with my pea sea.
It plane lee
marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary
polished in it’s weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps
me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when I rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o’er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.
Bee
fore a veiling checker’s Hour
spelling mite decline,
And if we’re
lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flair,
Their are no fault’s with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a ware.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay
purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word’s fare as hear.
To rite with
care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud,
And wee mussed dew
the best wee can,
Sew flaw’s are knot aloud.
Sow ewe can sea why aye
dew prays,
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two
averse
Buy righting too pleas.

Sauce Unknown

Funny Collective Nouns

However, Will and Guy have thought up some new, different, amusing and perhaps, funny quirky English collective nouns, which may make you
smile:

1. A jam of tarts
2. A conflagration of arsonists
3. An illusion of magicians
4. A horde of misers
5. An exaggeration of fishermen
6. A flush of plumbers
7. A corps of anatomists
8. A bodge of DIYers
9. A scoop of journalists
10. A decanter of publicans

The Plain English Campaign

The Plain English Campaign is a group that has been fighting for crystal-clear communication since 1979. Consider some of these examples
of grammatical mistakes that made Guy and Will smile:

• Take off lid and
  push up bottom. [From a stick deodorant label]
• These guidelines are written in a matter-of-fact
  style that eschews jargon, the obscure and the insular. They are intended for use by the novice and the experienced alike. [From the United Kingdom Evaluation Society ‘Guidelines for good practice in
  evaluation’]
• Thought grenade [Management jargon as found in Office Angels survey – means ‘explosive, good ideas’]
• This is a genuine ground floor opportunity to shape a front line field force operating in a matrix structure. [As stated on the ‘Take a Fresh Look at Wales’ website]
• The delay to this service is
  due to low adhesive conditions. [Otherwise known as ‘slippery tracks’, from First Scotrail]
• The cause of the fire was due to a malicious ignition incident that was fortunately contained to the function and
  meeting room area of the hotel. [News statement about a fire at a hotel]
• Its clear lines and minimalist design provide it with an unmistakable look. It is daring, and different. So that your writing
  instrument not only carries your message, but lives it. [Promotional literature for … pens]
• Where the policy is divided into a number of distinct arrangements (‘Arrangements’) where benefits are capable
  of being taken from on Arrangement or group of Arrangements separately from other Arrangements, then this policy amendment will not apply to any Arrangements in respect of which the relevant policy proceeds
  have already been applied to provide benefits. The policy amendment will apply to all other Arrangements under the policy. [Policy amendment, Norwich Union]

Less is not Fewer? – Tesco
Clear Up

Tesco supermarket has bowed to pressure from the Plain English Campaign
and scrapped checkout signs reading ‘ten items or less.’

Critics insist that the signs should read ‘ten items or fewer.’ Tesco has
side-stepped a complicated grammatical debate by changing the signs to: ‘Up
to 10 items.’

Footnote:
Please send us you examples of funny
grammar mistakes.