Funny Signs

Funny Signs:
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At a Budapest zoo - Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.

Detour sign in Kyushi, Japan - Stop - Drive Sideways.

From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner - Cooles and Heates - If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.

From the Soviet Weekly - There will be a Moscow Exhibition of Arts by 15,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.

In a Bangkok dry cleaners - Drop your trousers here for best results.

In a Bucharest hotel lobby - The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

In a Copenhagen airline ticket office - We take your bags and send them in all directions.

In a hotel in Athens, Greece - Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 AM daily.

In a Japanese hotel room - Please to bathe inside the tub.

In a Paris hotel elevator - Please leave your values at the front desk.

In a Rhodes, Greece tailor shop - Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.

In a Swiss mountain inn - Special today -- no ice cream.

In a Tokyo Hotel - Is forbitten to steal hotel towels please. If you are not person to do such thing is please not to read notis.

In a Tokyo shop - Our nylons cost more than common, but you'll find they are best in the long run.

In an Acapulco hotel - The manager has personally passed all the water served here.

In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist - Teeth extrcted by the latest Methodists.

In an East African newspaper - A new swimming pool is rapidly taking shape since the contractors have thrown in the bulk of their workers.

In the window of a Swedish furrier - Fur coats made for ladies from their own skin.

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant - Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop - Ladies may have a fit upstairs.

Sign from a Majorcan shop entrance - English well talking

Arguing effectively
How to Argue Effectively

I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me. You too can win arguments. Simply follow these rules:

-=- Make things up.

Suppose, in the Peruvian economy argument, you are trying to prove that Peruvians are underpaid, a position you base solely on the fact that YOU are underpaid, and you are not going to let a bunch of Peruvians be better off. DON'T say: "I think Peruvians are underpaid." Say instead: "The average Peruvian's salary in 2004 dollars adjusted for the revised tax base is $1,452.81 per annum, which is $836.07 before the mean gross poverty level."

NOTE: Always make up exact figures.

If an opponent asks you where you got your information, make THAT up too. Say: "This information comes from Dr. Hovel T. Moon's study for the Buford Commission published on May 9, 2005. Didn't you read it?" Say this in the same tone of voice you would use to say, "You left your soiled underwear in my bathroom."

-=- Use meaningless but weighty-sounding words and phrases.

Memorize this list:

Let me put it this way

In terms of

Vis-a-vis

Per se

As it were

Qua

So to speak

You should also memorize some Latin abbreviations such as "Q.E.D.", "e.g.", and "i.e." These are all short for "I speak Latin, and you don't."

Here's how to use these words and phrases. Suppose you want to say, "Peruvians would like to order appetizers more often, but they don't have enough money."

You never win arguments talking like that. But you WILL win if you say, "Let me put it this way. In terms of appetizers

vis-a-vis Peruvians qua Peruvians, they would like to order them more often, so to speak, but they do not have enough money per se, as it were. Q.E.D."

Only a fool would challenge that statement.

-=- Use snappy and irrelevant comebacks.

You need an arsenal of all-purpose irrelevant phrases to fire back at your opponents when they make valid points. The best are:

You're begging the question.

You're being defensive.

Don't compare apples to oranges.

What are your parameters?

This last one is especially valuable. Nobody (other than engineers and policy wonks) has the vaguest idea what "parameters" means.

Don't forget the classic: YOU'RE SO LINEAR.

Here's how to use your comebacks:

You say: As Abraham Lincoln said in 1873...

Your opponent says: Lincoln died in 1865.

You say: You're begging the question.

You say: Liberians, like most Asians...

Your opponent says: Liberia is in Africa.

You say: You're being defensive.

-=- Compare your opponent to Adolf Hitler.

This is your heavy artillery, for when your opponent is obviously right and you are spectacularly wrong. Bring Hitler up subtly.

Say, "That sounds suspiciously like something Adolf Hitler might say," or "You certainly do remind me of Adolf Hitler."