It has been scientifically proven, laughter does make you feel better. Even technical writers have a sense of humor you know! In fact, it is a requirement of our jobs. Without it, we would all be crazy by Friday!

So, we have gathered a few of our favorite writing and technical support jokes, funny lists, and "too wild to be made up" stories from the Web. Enjoy!

Disclaimer:
Most of the material on this page was sent to us in an e-mail or given to us printed without any acknowledgement of where it came from. It is not our intent to plagiarize or use anyone's original writing without giving them credit. If you know the source of any of this material, please let us know so we can obtain permission to use it or add a credit. Thank you.

From a sign seen in a tattoo parlor in Louisville, Kentucky:
TATTOOS — WHILE YOU WAIT

From a liquor store ad in the Washington Post:
We reserve the right to limit quantities. Not responsible for tipographical errors.

From a sign in Revere, Massachusetts:
Why waist time in traffic? Rent this office space.

From the posted policy of a car dealership in Cedar Rapids, Iowa:
NO LEMON PLEDGE

From an eatery in Toronto:
PLEASE BE CONSIDERED OF OUR PATRONS.

From a UNESCO cover letter:
At the same time Friends of UNESCO would like to offer our data base of volunteers/cooperants in case you ever need a person with a concrete profile.

A second-language English speaker during a heated debate at a business meeting:
Whatever else you have to say to us will make no difference. It's just water up a duck's backside.

From the Cape Argus classified section:
SLIMING MACHINE hire, fat rolls off, huge loss, works.

From a small-town paper:
The Mayor reiterated that prostitution would not be allowed to take root. “Something should have been done sooner. Already last year alarm balls were going off.”

A second-language speaker, describing how she lay in bed worrying about intruders:
I was sure there was something wrong; I could hear all the dogs in the neighborhood barfing.

From a Cape Town newspaper, in a story about tons of crayfish that had washed up on a local beach:
Mr. Mokaba said: “The locals may help to remove the crayfish, after which they would be packed or reduced to fishmeal.”

From the classified section of a Cape Town newspaper:
Mature gentleman, distinguished appearance, 7 metres tall, seeks lady 40 – 55 for companionship with view to marriage.

From student and scholar essays:

The Sarah Dessert is the largest dessert in Africa.

King Solomon had five hundred wives and five hundred porcupines.

The Philatelists were a race of people who lived in Biblical times.

There was a big oak tree outside my bedroom, so my boyfriend could wake me up by throwing unicorns at the window.

The Greeks invented three kinds of columns – Corinthian, Doric and Ironic.

The government of Athens was democratic because people took the law into their own hands.

William Tell shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.

Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world in a 100-foot clipper.

It is about time Table Mountain stands on its own two feet and becomes recognised as a national monument.

During my time as an athlete, I excelled at the hudles and the 200 mm race.

Teacher's advice to students about their final-year dance:
It's important to remember that it's not so much what you wear to the dance, but how you pull it off.

An actual paragraph from a user manual (or "Why they should have hired Write Justified!"):

Instructions: For results that can be the finest, it is our advising that: Never to hold these buttons two times!! Except the battery. Next, taking the earth section may cause a large occurrence! However. If this is not a trouble, such rotation is a very maintenance action, as a kindly viewpoint from Drawing B.

Actual lines from newspaper articles and ads (and written by "professional" writers?):

At least half their customers who fly to New York come by plane.

The bride was wearing an old lace gown that fell to the floor as she walked down the isle.

Comfortable apartment. Short walk to the beach. Affordable germs.

The congressman stayed after the town meeting and discussed the high cost of living with several women.

The conviction carries a penalty of one to ten years in Alabama.

Hark! I hear a white horse coming!

How would you like to write my autobiography?

If your eye falls on a bargain, pick it up!

Include your children when baking cookies.

And, of course, the old fashioned church bulletin is always good for a laugh...

A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.

This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and lay an egg on the alter.

Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community.

The rosebud on the alter this morning is to announce the birth of David Alan Belzer, the sin of Rev. and Mrs. Julius Belzer.

Here are some signs, notices, and other items written in English that were discovered throughout the world. You have to give the writers an 'E' for Effort.

Translated from a Japanese natural history book:
Pandas have highly sensitive shnozzles with which they like to sniff out their food.

From a menu in Cusco, Peru:

Copa Burble
Gordon Blue Stik
Hogdog
Alligator spears
Cream of Clog

From a tourist brochure in Chile:
You will be able to see the famous pink flamencos wading in the middle of the lake.

From Lost in the Translation:
When Kentucky Fried Chicken entered the Chinese market, to their horror they discovered that their slogan “finger lickin' good” came out as “eat your fingers off”.

One of the first lines appearing on the scoreboard at the opening ceremonies of the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan (reported in Time, February 23, 1998):
Oh, we beseech you. Heave-ho, heave-ho.

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

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 Leipzig elevator:
Do not enter the lift backwards, and only when lit up.

In a Belgrade hotel elevator:
To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.

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

In a hotel in Athens:
Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.

In a Yugoslavian hotel:
The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.

In a Japanese hotel:
You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastery:
You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.

In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers:
Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.

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

On the menu of a Polish hotel:
Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion.

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

In a Bangkok dry cleaner's:
Drop your trousers here for best results.

Outside a Paris dress shop:
Dresses for street walking.

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

A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest:
It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.

In a Zurich hotel:
Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.

In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist:
Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.

In a Rome laundry:
Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.

In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency:
Take one of our horse-driven city tours - we guarantee no miscarriages.

Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand:
Would you like to ride on your own ass?

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

In a Bangkok temple:
It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.

In a Tokyo bar:
Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.

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

On the door of a Moscow hotel room:
If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.

In a Norwegian cocktail lounge:
Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.

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

In the office of a Roman doctor:
Specialist in women and other diseases.

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

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

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 a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo:
When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.

My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. Profanity sucks.
15. Be more or less specific.
16. Understatement is always best.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?

A computer manufacturer is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.

Technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.

A technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn't read word processing files from his old diskettes. After trouble-shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was found that the customer labeled the diskettes then rolled them into his typewriter to type the labels.

A customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes to the technician. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed copies of her diskettes

A technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer put the disk in, asked the tech to hold on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and closing the door to his room.

A customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the screen and pressing the "send" key.

A customer needed help setting up a new program, so the technician suggested he go to the local Egghead. "Yeah, I got me a couple of friends," the man said. When told Egghead was a software store, the man said, "Oh, I thought you meant for me to find a couple of geeks."

A customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then he removed all the keys and washed them individually.

A technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was "bad and invalid". The tech explained that the computer's "bad" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally.

An exasperated caller to Tech Support couldn't get her new computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse.

Another customer called Tech Support to say her brand-new computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in, and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked "What power switch?