Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Sewing Machine

A Comedy of Errors

--The following is an ad from a real-life newspaper which
appeared four days in a row - the last three hopelessly trying
to correct the first day's mistake.

MONDAY:
For sale: R. D. Jones has one sewing machine for sale.
Phone 948-0707 after 7 P.M.. and ask for Mrs. Kelly who lives
with him cheap.

TUESDAY:
Notice: We regret having erred In R. D. Jones' ad yesterday. It
should have read "One sewing machine for sale cheap.
Phone 948-0707 and ask for Mrs. Kelly, who lives with him after
7 P.M."

WEDNESDAY:
Notice: R. D. Jones has informed us that he has received
several annoying telephone calls because of the error we made in
the classified ad yesterday. The ad stands correct as follows:
"For sale -- R. D. Jones has one sewing machine for sale. Cheap.
Phone 948-0707 after 7 P.M. and ask for Mrs. Kelly who loves
with him."

THURSDAY:
Notice: I, R. D. Jones, have no sewing machine for sale. I
intentionally broke it. Don't call 948-0707 as I have had the
phone disconnected. I have not been carrying on with Mrs. Kelly.
Until yesterday she was my housekeeper, but she has now quit.

11 comments:

  1. Poor Mrs Kelly.. A bit uptight, are we?

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  2. They had a Bad Day, 4 days in a row.

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  3. LB, who wouldn't for having perceived as living and loving cheaply and only after 7pm. LOL!

    FH2o, yeah, they probably need to kayak away to some remote space - like Bako National Park. hehe...

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  4. That's almost as bad as a (real-life) radio broadcast in which the announcer said, "As part of the ongoing fair, sexual competions are to be held at (the local) high school. Oh, I'm sorry, did I say 'sectional competitions'? That should have been 'sexual'."

    Sometimes it's better not to try to correct your mistakes...

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  5. Sometimes in trying to save costs, advertisers squeeze in as many key words possible without proper sentence construction, and that leads to confusion!

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  7. Sewing machine jokes leave me in stitches.

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  8. "Sometimes it's better not to try to correct your mistakes...

    MM, this is so true. I've experienced that - one correction leading to more corrections making the situation more embarrassing.

    Joe, I thought the one who advertises has the last say because he's going to be the one paying for the number of words. No?

    Pandabonium, hehe....

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  9. Yes Happy, advertisers are the ones who pay for the number of words, that is why they try using minimum words to squeeze into a fixed column space - going beyond the space capacity means having to pay higher rates! In other words, they are trying to save money.

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  10. Joe, Oops! I misunderstood your earlier comment. I was thinking Advertisers being the paper-people. Thanks for your patience.

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  11. Panda, stop needling us with such thimblistic humor on these threads! It may seam funny to you, but I'm a frayed knot.

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