My Collection of Amazing Sentences

  A theme on "can" and "open":

Can this can opener open any can that can be opened by a can opener?

[Diplomat's reply:] Whether this can opener can open any can that can be opened by a can opener is an open question.

[Singaporean's reply:] Can can, lah!

(Original theme from BBC, courtesy Yaser Abu-Mostafa. I took the liberty of changing it into question-&-answers, with Singapore connection.)

Sentences with consecutive words/homophones:

1) [Two students, Sita and Gita, constructed a sentence in past participle tense differently in response to a question in an examination. Which one did the examiner prefer?]

Sita, while Gita had had `had had', had had `had'; `had had' had had a better effect on the examiner.

(Courtesy: Somak Bandyopadhyay)

2) Should e’er Eyre heir err ere Ayer are air aire ends, it will be hid.

This one is rather twisted, so here is the meaning. If ever [e’er] someone in line to inherit [heir] from Jane Eyre’s family makes a mistake [err] before [ere] a song [aire] in the mist [air] over an acre of land [are] in Ayre [name of a city] ends, that mistake will be hidden (by the mist).

(Courtesy: Dan Scharfman)

3) [Teacher: Class, spell "rite" on your notebook.
Jerry: Teacher, Wright has written it wrongly.]

Teacher: Right! Wright, write "rite" right, right away!

(Courtesy: Horlicks Bumper Funbook)

4) [In reply to a query when a train will stop here:]

Two-to-two to two-two. [1:58 to 2:02]

(Courtesy: movie ‘Anbe Sivam’)

 

5) A sentence cannot begin with because, because, because is a conjunction.

(Courtesy: K P G Smitha)

Themes on homophones:

To tattoo two together before two is too much!

(Courtesy: Anamitra Makur)

 

Career is the carrier of life.

(Courtesy: Mahendra Kumar/Shankar Kumar)

Sentences with homographs:

Knowledge is the knowledge that you don’t have any knowledge.

(Courtesy:  K P G Smitha)

            The bandage was wound around the wound.

The firm was used to produce produce.

The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

We must polish the Polish furniture.

The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

A bass was painted on the dead of the bass drum.

When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

I did not object to the object.

They were too close to the door to close it.

The buck does funny things when the does are present.

A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

(All of the above, courtesy: Herbert Pilles)

Antimetabole (repetition of words in reverse order):

            To fail to plan is to plan to fail.

(Courtesy: Vinay Phegade)

 

            Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

(Courtesy: Carl Sagan)

Zeugma (a word used with 2 different meanings):

            He caught a fish and a cold.

            She lost her ring and her temper.

Epanalepsis (word/phrase repeated at the beginning and at the end):

            The king is dead, long live the king.

Love songs for those who love songs

(Courtesy: A billboard in Bangalore)

 

            Hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear. Believe me for mine honor, and have respect to mine honor, that you may believe.

(Courtesy: William Shakespeare)

Alliteration with v:

            Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the 'vox populi' now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.

(Courtesy: movie ‘V for Vendetta’)

Punctuation pun:

            1) [Does the sentence below make sense? Click here to see its punctuation marks.]

Charles the First walked and talked Half an hour after his head was cut off

2) [John was only too pleased to receive the following telegram from Jane sans punctuation marks (the ones below are added by John). Unfortunately, Jane intended a different set of marks as shown here.]

Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we are apart. I can be forever happy - will you let me be yours?

Jane.

(Both sources: dreamcatcher.asia)

If you know more such gems, and would like to share, please email them to me at eamakur@ntu.edu.sg