Futility Closet

'Did you hear the story of the extraordinary precocity of Mrs. Perkins's baby that died last week?' asked Mrs. Allgood. 'It was only three months old, and lying at the point of death, when the grief-stricken mother asked the doctor if nothing could save it. "Absolutely nothing!" said the doctor. Then the infant looked up pitifully into its mother's face and said—absolutely nothing!'

'Impossible!' insisted Mildred. 'And only three months old!'

– Henry Ernest Dudeney, Amusements in Mathematics, 1917

"I saw a big rat in my cook-stove and when I went for my revolver he ran out."

"Did you shoot him?"

"No. He was out of my range."

– The Pun Book, 1906

The water tower in Florence, Ky., originally advertised the Florence Mall.

That violated regulations, though, and they had to change it to something …

One may see in the shop-windows of a Fourth avenue confectioner, 'Pies Open All Night.' An undertaker in the same thoroughfare advertises, 'Everything Requisite for a First-class Funeral.' A Bowery placard reads, 'Home-made Dining Rooms, Family Oysters.' A West Broadway restaurateur sells 'Home-made Pies, Pastry and Oysters.' A Third avenue 'dive' offers for sale 'Coffee and Cakes off the Griddle,' and an East Broadway caterer retails 'Fresh Salt Oysters' and 'Larger Beer.' A Fulton street tobacconist calls himself a 'Speculator in Smoke,' and a purveyor of summer drinks has invented a new draught, which he calls by the colicky name of 'Aeolian Spray.' A Sixth avenue barber hangs out a sign reading 'Boots Polished Inside,' and on Varick street, near Carmine, there are 'Lessons Given on the Piano, with use for Practice.' 'Cloth Cutt and Bastd' is the cabalistic legend on the front of a millinery shop on Spring street; on another street the following catches the eye: 'Washin Ironin and Goin Out by the Day Done Here.'

– Frank H. Stauffer, The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical, 1882

"I saw a sign in a hardware store to-day 'Cast iron sinks.' As though everyone wasn't wise to that."

– The New Pun Book, 1906

Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Benford's Corollary: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

Raymond's Second Law: Any sufficiently advanced system of magic would be indistinguishable from a technology.

Sterling's Corollary: Any sufficiently advanced garbage is indistinguishable from magic.

Langford's application to science fiction: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a completely ad-hoc plot device.

Who wants my jellyfish?
I'm not sellyfish!

– Ogden Nash

The Spectator once ran a competition asking its readers "What would you most like to read on opening the morning paper?" One reader submitted this entry:

Our Second Competition

The First Prize in the second of this year's competitions goes to Mr. Arthur Robinson, whose witty entry was easily the best of those we received. His choice of what he would like to read on opening his paper was headed, 'Our Second Competition,' and was as follows: 'The First Prize in the second of this year's competitions goes to Mr. Arthur Robinson, whose witty entry was easily the best of those we received. His choice of what he would like to read on opening his paper was headed "Our Second Competition," but owing to paper restrictions we cannot print all of it.'

The Busman's Lord's Prayer, allegedly recited by British bus drivers:

Our Farnham, who art in Hendon
Harrow be Thy name.
Thy Kingston come; thy Wimbledon,
In Erith as it is in Hendon.
Give us this day our daily Brent
And forgive us our Westminster
As we forgive those who Westminster against us.
And lead us not into Thames Ditton
But deliver us from Yeovil.
For Thine is the Kingston, the Purley and the Crawley,
For Esher and Esher.
Crouch End.

A neutron walks into a bar and orders a beer.

"How much do I owe you?" he says.

"For you," says the bartender, "no charge."