Сборник "HUMOUR AND SHORT STORIES"
занимательные факты по английскому языку (6, 7, 8, 9 класс) на тему

HUMOUR AND SHORT STORIES

Doctor: Could you pay for an operation if I thought that it was necessary?

Patient: Would you think the operation was necessary if I couldn't pay for it?

* * *

Teacher: Tom, your homework, in which you wrote about a cat, is very much like your brother's story. How is that?

Tom: Nothing strange about that, we have only one cat at home.

* * *

Little Girl: Mother, my cat can talk.

Mother: Really?

Little Girl: I ask her what is two minus two and she says nothing.

* * *

Mother: What are you jumping up and down for, Paul?

Paul: I took my medicine and forgot to shake the bottle.

* * *

Hello! Is that Ted Wells?

Yes. Who is speaking?

Sam.

Who? I don't hear.

I say Sam: Sid, Ada, Mary. Do you hear?

Yes, I do. But which of you three is speaking now?

* * *

Mother: You are seven today. Happy birthday to you, Tommy.

Tommy: Thank you, Mummy.

Mother: Do you like to have a cake with seven candles on it for your birthday party?

Tommy: I think I better have seven cakes and one candle, Mummy.

* * *

Tourist: Excuse me, but does this bus stop at Tenth Street?

Passenger: Yes. Watch me and get of one station before I do.

Tourist: Thank you.

* * *

Are you still looking for your dog, Bill?

Yes.

Why don't you put an advertisement in the paper?

What's the use! The dog can't read.

* * *

The waitress brought the soup to everyone in the dining-room of a small hotel. Mr. Smith got the last plate, and the waitress stayed for a moment beside his table; she was looking out of the window.

“It looks like rain,” she said.

“Yes,” said Mr. Smith (he had tasted the soup), “and it tastes like rain too.”

***

Mr. Gray was on holiday by the sea. He was staying in a small hotel but it was not о good hotel. The meals were very small. One day he sat down to dinner. His plate looked wet. He held it up to the waiter and said, “This plate is wet. Please bring me another.” “That's your soup, sir,” replied the waiter.

 ***

At last the visitor had to say something about food.

“I don't like this pie, Mrs. Fiddles,” he said. “Oh, don't you?” said the angry landlady. “I was making pies before you were born.” “Perhaps this is one of them.”

***

“I'm doing very well in my driving lessons,” Betty said. “Yesterday I went 50 miles per hour. Tomorrow I'm going to try to open my eyes when I pass another car.”

***

The policeman stopped a woman driver for going too fast.

“When I saw you coming round that corner, I said to myself, “At least 45” the officer told her.

 “Well,” was the answer. “I always look older in this hat.”

***

“Why were you driving too fast, madam?” the policeman asked.

“My breaks aren't very good”, she answered, “and I was hurrying home before I had an accident

***

A gentleman was sitting quietly in a first-class compartment. Two ladies got in. One of them saw that the window was open, and she shut it

before sitting down.

“Open it again,” said the second lady. “I'll die of suffocation if there is no fresh air.”

“I won't open it,” said the first lady. “I'll die of cold if the window is open.”

A quarrel started, and it continued until the gentleman-spoke:

“Let's have the window shut until this lady has died of suffocation, and then we can have it open until this lady has died of cold. After that it will be nice and quiet in here again.”

***

The young doctor had just finished his training. He didn't know what the patient's illness was.

“Have you had this before?” he asked.

“Yes, doctor.”

“Oh! Well! You've got it again.”

* * *

John Smith couldn't sleep, so his doctor gave him some sleeping pills. He took a pill that night.

He felt well when he woke up, and he went to work cheerfully.

“I slept very well last night,” he told his boss.

“That's good,” his boss said. “But where were you yesterday?”

***

 “My boyfriend is wonderful,” said Helen. “He is rather nice, I must say,” said Kate. “He tells everyone that he is going to marry the most beautiful girl in the world,” said Helen.

“I am so sorry,” said Kate. “Perhaps he will change his mind and marry you after all.”

***

When a girl shows a ring and says that she is going to be married, it is usual to ask: “Who's the lucky man?” It's a silly question because everybody knows that the lucky man is her father.

***

“I love you so much! Do you think you could live on my salary?”

“Of course I could. But what would you live on?”

***

Mr. Brown finished his breakfast. Then he asked the waiter to bring the manager of the hotel.

"Yes, sir, what can I do for you?" said the manager when he arrived.

"You must have a very clean kitchen here," said Mr. Brown.

"That is very kind of you to say so, sir,” said the manager. "But what makes you think we have a very clean kitchen?"

"Well," replied Mr. Brown, "everything tastes of soap."

***

'What's the meaning of this fly in my

soup?"

"I don't know, sir. I'm a waiter, not a fortune teller."

***

A man was just finishing his lunch in a restaurant. The waitress asked if he would like coffee.

"Yes, please," he replied.

The waitress went away but came back quickly and asked, "With cream or without, sir?"

"Without cream," he replied.

Then, after a much longer wait, the waitress returned. "I'm very sorry," she said. "There is no more cream. Will you have it without milk?"

***

Little Tommy liked to ask questions. One day he asked his father one more question. His father did not know the answer. "Don't ask me so many questions," he said. "You have already asked me nearly a hundred questions today. I didn't ask my father half as many questions."

"Well, Daddy, perhaps you would know more of the answers to my questions if you had asked more," said Tommy.

***

Mr. and Mrs. White had a very good table in their dining-room. It was made of the best wood. When Mr. and Mrs. Brown visited the Whites, little Tommy White was hammering nail after nail into the costly table.

"Isn't that a rather expensive game?" Mr. Brown asked.

"Oh, no," Mr. White answered. 'I get the nails at the shop on the corner. They are really quite cheap."

***

Billy didn't ask for a cake. He reached past the lady visitor and took one.

"Billy!" said his mother sharply. "Haven't you got a tongue?"

'Yes, Mum," Billy replied. "But it won't reach as far as the cakes."

SHORT STORIES

How Many Were There?

The police in a big city were looking for a robber. One day they caught him and took him to prison. But while they were taking photographs of him — from the front, from the left, from the right, with a hat, without a hat — he suddenly attacked the policeman and ran away.

Then a week later the telephone rang in the police-station, and somebody said, “You’re looking for Bill Cross, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he left here for Waterbridge an hour ago.”

Waterbridge was a small town 100 miles from the city. The city police immediately sent four different photographs of the robber to the police in Waterbridge. Less than twelve hours later they got a telephone call from the police in Waterbridge. “We have caught three of the men,” they said happily, “and we hope to catch the fourth this evening.”

The Sea on Strike

Many years ago, a London theatre performed a play with a terrible storm at sea in one of the scenes. The waves were made by some boys who jumped up and down under a large piece of green cloth. Each boy received a shilling a night for his work.

The play was very popular and the hall was usually full. But the director of the theatre wanted to make still more money from the performances, and he decided to lower the boys' pay from a shilling to sixpence. This made the boys angry, and they decided to go on strike for a shilling a night.

During the next performance, when the storm began, there was enough loud noise on the stage, but the sea was absolutely calm, not one wave could be seen. The theatre director immediately ran behind the stage, raised a corner of the green cloth and shouted, “Waves! Waves! Why aren't you making waves?!” One of the boys sitting under the cloth asked him, “Do you want sixpenny waves or shilling waves?"

“All right, all right!" the director said. “I'll give you a shilling, only give me the waves!”

Tremendous waves immediately began to appear on the sea, and everybody agreed that they had never seen a better storm in the theatre.

An Anecdote About Mark Twain

One of Mark Twain's hobbies was fishing, and he used to go fishing even in the closed season when fishing was not allowed. Like many fishermen, he sometimes invented stories about the number of fish he caught.

One day during the closed season, Mark Twain sat fishing under a little bridge. A man crossing the bridge saw him fishing there. The man stood watching Mark Twain fishing, and then he asked, “Have you caught many fish?"

“Not yet,” Mark Twain answered. “I've only just begun. But yesterday I caught thirty big fish here.”

“That's very interesting,” the man said. “Do you know who I am?"

“No,” Mark Twain said. “I don't think I ever saw you before."

“I'm the fishing inspector for this district," the man said.

"And do you know who I am?” Mark Twain asked quickly.

“No, of course not,” said the inspector.

"I am the biggest liar on the Mississippi,” Mark Twain told him.

Tea Leaves

There was a time when drinking tea was almost unknown in European countries; many people had never even heard of tea. This anecdote is about an old woman and her son, who lived at that time.

The woman's son was a sailor, and every time he returned from a far-away country, he brought his mother a gift. Naturally, he tried to bring something unusual that she could show to her friends.

Once, the young man came back from India with a box of tea for his mother. She didn't know anything about tea, but she liked the smell, and invited all her friends to come and taste it. When her son came into the room, he saw cakes and fruit and sweets on the table, and a big plate filled with tea-leaves. His mother and her friends were sitting round the table, eating the leaves with butter and salt. Though they all smiled, it was clear that they didn't enjoy eating the leaves.

“Where is tea, Mother?” the sailor asked.

His mother pointed to the plate in the middle of the table.

“No, no, that is only the leaves of the tea,” the sailor said. “Where is the water?”

“The water!” his mother said. “I threw the water away, of course! out of the set!” He smiled to himself, lit his pipe and began reading his favourite book