English jokes

Different senses of humour have different personalities or styles. But the humour coming from the idiosyncrasy of a language itself is quite devoid of personality. It makes you laugh just for being the way it is.

In an attempt to improve my English, I read a book** on rhetorics. One chapter teaches hyperbaton, which is the expected word order.

In English, the adjectives follow this order: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, and purpose. For example, you could have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife.

There is another word order called ablaut reduplication. The order is I A O. For example, pitter-patter of tiny feet, ding-dong of a bell, hip-hop music, wearing flip-flops, answering his insult tit for tat, etc. You don't wear flop-flips; you wear flip-flops.

Another word order is that English sentences shall not end with a preposition. For example, you cannot shut up, so you up to shut. Or someone should tell you to "Out look! Down get!"

** The Elements of Eloquence, by Mark Forsyth

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