Articles by Colin Carmichael

Fictional Swear Words in Sci-Fi

I grew up in a house where “language” was treated like a sport. Not the fussy grammar kind, either. The dinner table was a proving ground for puns, riddles, and the occasional groan-worthy substitution when someone almost said a word that would have earned them a pointed look from my mother. So...

From “D’oh!” to “Bazinga!”: TV Catchphrases We All Speak Now

I grew up in a house where a good pun was basically considered a vegetable. You had to have it at dinner whether you liked it or not. So when a TV catchphrase escapes the screen and starts turning up at school, at work, and eventually in my own mouth while I’m looking for the ketchup, I notice....

Puns vs. Riddles: Combining Both for Brain-Teasing Word Jokes

I grew up in a house where the dinner table had two main courses: whatever was on the plates, and whatever was on the words. Someone would say, “Pass the rolls,” and my dad would reply, “I can’t, they’re already on a journey.” Groans were currency. Riddles showed up too, usually when someone wanted...

Office-Appropriate Wordplay in Work Emails

I come from a dinner table where passing the peas was never just passing the peas. It was “pea-sing negotiations,” “peas and thank you,” or (when Dad was feeling bold) “we need to address the elephant in the dining room.” The workplace, unfortunately, is not always a dinner table. But a tiny bit of...

Rebus Puzzles: How to Solve and Create Visual Wordplay

I grew up in a house where passing the salt came with a side of wordplay. My family could turn a dinner table into a pun arena faster than you could say “peas and thank you.” So when I first met a rebus puzzle, it felt like language had put on a little costume. Same jokes, same groans, but now with...

How to Write a Funny Limerick

I grew up in a house where passing the peas came with a pun, and dessert was basically a reward for enduring it. So when I discovered limericks, it felt like finding a sport where groaning is not only allowed, it is the scoring system. A good limerick is a five-line joke with a spring in its step....

Clean Double Entendres: Smart Wordplay Without the Wink

I grew up in a house where the dinner table was basically open mic night, except the only heckling allowed was a synchronized groan. That is where I learned the finest art in family-friendly comedy: saying something that sounds like it might be naughty, but is actually perfectly wholesome. That...

60 Clever Birthday Puns for Greeting Cards (And Tips to Invent Your Own)

I grew up in a house where the dinner table had two main courses: whatever was on the plates, and whatever was on the pun menu. Birthdays were our Super Bowl of wordplay. Somebody would light the candles, and somebody else (usually me, with the confidence of a boy holding a pen over a crossword)...

Purr-fect Wordplay: Animal Puns for Any Species

In my house growing up, the dinner table had two rules: pass the potatoes, and never let a good pun go uneaten. If someone said “I’m starving,” my dad would reply, “Hi Starving, I’m Dad,” and then somehow the conversation would wander into a debate about whether “purr-suade” counts as a real word....

Baking Up Laughs: Food Puns for Social Captions

I grew up in a house where the salt got passed with a side of sarcasm and every casserole came with a complimentary pun. So yes, I am absolutely the kind of person who will look at a tray of brownies and think, fudge yeah . If you are looking to sprinkle a little wordplay onto your social media...

60 Funny Malapropism Examples

I grew up in a home where passing the peas was not enough; you also had to season the moment with a pun. Which is probably why my brain still delights in language mishaps, especially the glorious, high-flying mistake known as the malapropism . A malapropism is when you use the wrong word in place...

How to Create Hilarious Spoonerisms

I grew up in a household where the dinner table was basically open mic night for groan-worthy wordplay. Someone would reach for the potatoes, someone else would reach for a pun, and occasionally a sentence would tumble out so tangled it made everyone stop chewing and stare. That, my friends, is the...

Hangry, Spork, and Beyond: 30 Funny Portmanteaus We Use Daily

I grew up in a house where you could not pass the potatoes without somebody trying to pass off a pun. So when I learned there was a fancy word for mashing two words into one, I felt extremely validated. A portmanteau is that magical moment when English looks at two perfectly respectable words and...

Clever Anagrams for Maximum Comedy

I grew up in a home where passing the peas was not just passing the peas. It was also a high-stakes audition for whoever could twist a sentence into something groan-worthy before dessert. So it is no surprise that anagrams feel like home to me: take perfectly innocent letters, rearrange them, and...

Their, There, or They’re? Explained

I grew up in a house where the dinner table doubled as a comedy club. Not the glamorous kind. The kind where someone says, “Pass the peas,” and Dad replies, “I can’t. I’m trying to ketchup.” So when people ask why I care so much about their , there , and they’re , my answer is simple: because one...

The Most Expensive and Hilarious Typos in Published History

I grew up in a house where a misplaced letter was basically a dinner bell. Someone would misread a cereal box, my dad would pounce like a pun-hungry hawk, and the rest of us would groan in chorus. To this day, I am convinced the English language is held together by duct tape, good intentions, and...

Eggcorns vs. Mondegreens

I grew up in a house where someone could say, “Pass the salt,” and someone else would reply, “I can’t. I’m on a low sodium self of steam .” That is not a true story, but it feels true, which is basically the whole mechanics of misheard words. Two of the funniest species in this little ecosystem are...

The Anatomy of a Dad Joke

I grew up in a house where “pass the peas” could become a 10-minute linguistic crime spree. Dinner was less “family meal” and more “open mic night for people who think homophones are a personality.” So when someone asks me how to craft a dad joke, I do what any responsible adult would do: I sharpen...

Mind-Bending Palindromes: 40 Lines That Read the Same Backwards

My childhood dinner table had two guaranteed “courses”: whatever was on the plates, and whatever was on my dad’s mind. The second one was usually a pun that made everyone groan so hard the peas rolled off their forks. Somewhere in that happy racket I met one of language’s neatest party tricks:...

25 Bizarre English Idioms and Their Literal Meanings

I grew up in a home where passing the peas without passing a pun was basically illegal. So when someone casually says they “kicked the bucket” or “spilled the beans,” my brain does what it always does: it pictures the literal scene, and then it refuses to be quiet about it. Below are 25 gloriously...