Tag Archives: humor

Richard Lederer’s Famous History of the World in Student Bloopers

House cleaning continues at Mark’s Text Terminal. Over 12 years of storing material inevitable redundancies occur, as do good intentions never realized–i.e. material planned, even begun, but never executed. For the next week or so, I’ll post materials that might be useful to you, readers and colleagues. In so doing, I’ll drive to separate the precious metals from the dross and the wheat from the chaff–and try not to waste your time with dross and chaff (shall I continue to beat these overworked metaphors?).

Somewhere along the line, most college students, I hope, encounter Richard Lederer’s famous (or infamous, I suppose, depending on one’s sense of humor) “The World According to Student Bloopers.” If you can use it, here is a typescript of that hilarious compendium.

Should you find typos in this document, they can be easily corrected by consulting Professor Lederer’s original under the middle of the three hyperlinks (“The World…”) above.

George Bernard Shaw on Bourgeois Morality

“Bourgeois morality is largely a system of making cheap virtues a cloak of expensive vices.”

George Bernard Shaw

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

Oddball Place Names

This list of oddball place names never failed to bring laughter to my classroom when I taught an advisory at a middle school in the North Bronx.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

The Devil’s Dictionary: Benevolence

“Benevolence, n. Subscribing five dollars towards the relief of one’s aged grandfather in the alms house, and publishing it in the newspaper.” 

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

Russell Baker on Progress

“Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.”

Russell Baker

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

The Algonquin Wits: George S. Kaufman on Manipulating Markets

“While entertaining musician-wit Oscar Levant at this new Bucks County home, George Kaufman offered his friend an engaging business proposition (based on Levant’s reputation as a noxious influence): ‘We’ll both walk through the main thoroughfares of Bucks County and I’ll have blueprints in my hand and this will lead people to think that you are going to build and settle down here. The local inhabitants will become panic-stricken and real estate will go down. Then we’ll buy, you won’t build, and we’ll clean up.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

Jonathan Swift on Expectation and Disappointment

“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”

Jonathan Swift

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

The Devil’s Dictionary: Justice

“Justice, n. A commodity which in a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

An Omnibus of Rotten Reviews: Philip Roth

Portnoy’s Complaint (1971)

This looks and sounds like a Jewish novel. It isn’t. Or, if it is, it is not a good one, a true one…it is finally a definitive something or other. I regret that it is not a definitive something.

America

The best that can be said of Roth’s accomplishment is that Mama Portnoy is a caricature drawn by a master cartoonist, but she’s not more than that…the main trouble with the Jewish family theme is that it has been overwritten.

The Nation

Our Gang (1971)

Nixon’s rough treatment at Roth’s hands may very well invite more sympathy for him than anything since the Checkers speech.

Saturday Review

The Great American Novel (1973)

Roth has, unfortunately, got into such a shouting match with his readers that some of us are going to have to start shouting back.

Encounter

My Life as a Man (1974)

…a totally solipsistic novel, which may well make it a perfect expression of the times.

Commentary

Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.

Steve Wozniak on the Digital Age

“Never trust a computer you can’t throw out of a window.”

Stephen Wozniak

Quoted in Newsbytes, 26 Sept. 1997

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.