Category Archives: HUMOR

‘Ticket-holding fits’? (lost in translation)

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Kevin

Have you ever been so excited to ride a boat that you had ticket-holding fits? Perhaps, but I don’t think that’s what the translator of a certain Chinese sign meant. A photo on Leonie Doyle’s blog (Lightlyskipping) shows a sign … Continue reading →

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‘The Calculendar Commercial’ video (Rebecca Black – ‘Friday’-Inspired)

Posted on April 1, 2011 by Kevin

Have trouble figuring out the days of the week? You need The Calculendar! (Available in many languages.) This TV-commercial parody was inspired by the lyrics Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday Today it is Friday, Friday [. . .] Tomorrow is Saturday … Continue reading →

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‘Spot the Ambiguity’ video

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Kevin

Steven and Brandon have a misunderstanding. Can you spot the ambiguity? Link to video Closed-captioning (CC) and transcript available.

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‘The Time That’s Spruced With Pine’ (my video)

Posted on December 20, 2010 by Kevin

After a short, original light-verse poem, hear about Christmas and Japanese New Year’s and learn some Japanese words related to New Year’s. Link to video Closed-captioning (CC) and transcript available.

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‘Talking to Zoo Animals’ (my video)

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Kevin

Here’s my story of talking to zoo animals and imitating their calls. It’s a true story, but I took some dramatic license. I didn’t actually wear glasses as a young child. And I don’t remember the monkeys’ food being invisible. … Continue reading →

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Funny video: ‘Don’t You Just Love Working in an Office?’

Posted on October 10, 2010 by Kevin

Youtube videos are not all stunts/cute animals or else (near-)professional content. There are also simple, low-budget amateur videos that are well-written and well-performed, such as katinatreesee’s video “Don’t You Just Love Working in an Office?” She plays a slacker office-worker … Continue reading →

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‘Language and Humor: First Show’ (My first live-action video)

Posted on September 12, 2010 by Kevin

This is the first show of “Language and Humor.” You’ll see that everything goes well until— Actually, you’ll see that it never starts going well. Could I— Could I have a moment alone, please? Link to video Closed-captioning (CC) and … Continue reading →

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‘Logo Teaser Trailer Parody’ (My first online video)

Posted on July 18, 2010 by Kevin

While I was working on my blog layout recently, my site logo asked if he could have a little time off. I said OK. Little did I know that he’d gotten a starring role in a movie. Link to video … Continue reading →

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The Force is strong in these GPS voices

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Kevin

[Obligatory Yoda inverted word order here insert you may.] The folks at TomTom are selling Star Wars voices for their GPS devices and seemed to have enjoyed the making of behind-the-scenes videos of the recording sessions. The Yoda one has … Continue reading →

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Buffy (and SNL) ‘much’ much?: Slang research with Hulu.com, Part 2

Posted on June 8, 2008 by Kevin

[EDIT (6/7/10): I broke this long post up into two posts.] This is Part 2 (Part 1) on finding early uses of American slang and colloquialisms from the television clips and episodes on Hulu‘s (language corpus of) shows from NBC … Continue reading →

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