I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not
dumb and I also know that I'm not blonde. -Dolly Parton-
You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a
smart woman with a dumb guy.
-Erica Jong-
I want to have children, but my friends scare me. One of my friends
told me she was in labor for 36 hours. I don't even want to do anything
that feels good for 36 hours. -Rita Rudner-
My husband and I are either going to buy a dog or have a child. We
can't decide whether to ruin our carpet or ruin our lives.
-Rita Rudner-
I've been on so many blind dates, I should get a free dog.
-Wendy Liebman-
Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.
-Erma Bombeck-
If high heels were so wonderful, men would still be wearing em.
-Sue Grafton-
I'm not going to vacuum 'til Sears makes one you can ride
-Roseanne Barr-
I think-therefore I'm single.
-Lizz Winstead-
When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade
another country.
-Elayne Boosler-
Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.
-Maryon Pearson-
I base most of my fashion taste on what doesn't itch.
-Gilda Radner-
In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want
anything done, ask a woman.
-Margaret Thatcher-
I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and
a career.
-Gloria Steinhem-
Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.
-Gloria Steinhem-
I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home
which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog which growls
every morning, a parrot which swears all afternoon and a cat that comes
home late at night.
-Marie Corelli-
Nagging is the repetition of unpalatable truths.
-Baroness Edith Summerskill-
If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing neckties? How
intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your
neck?
-Linda Ellerbee-
I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his
house.
-Zsa Zsa Gabor-
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
Letting the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than putting it back in.
If you're riding ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.
If you get to thinking you're a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else's dog around.
After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started
roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral:
When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.
Never kick a cow pat on a hot day.
There's two theories to arguing with a woman. Neither one works.
If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.
Never slap a man who's chewing tobacca.
It doesn't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.
Always drink upstream from the herd.
When you give a lesson in meanness to a critter or a person, don't be surprised if they learn their lesson.
When you're throwing your weight around, be ready to have it thrown around by somebody else.
The quickest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it back in your pocket.
Never miss a good chance to shut up.
There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who
learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence
for themselves.
An excerpt from a customer complaint letter sent to The Body Shop:
"... I recently shampooed my pet rabbit with Body Shop shampoo. Its eyes
bulged out and turned red. If you tested your stuff on animals like
everyone else, this sort of thing wouldn't happen! ..."
Cracking an international market is a goal of most growing
corporations. It shouldn't be that hard, yet even the big
multi-nationals run into trouble because of language and cultural
differences. For example...
Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the
following in an American add campaign: "Nothing sucks like
an Electrolux."
The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as
Ke-kou-ke-la.
Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until
after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase
means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with
wax" depending on the dialect. Coke then researched
40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic
equivalent, "ko-kou-ko-le," which can be loosely translated
as "happiness in the mouth."
In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive
with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring
your ancestors back from the dead."
Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan
"finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."
The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem - Feeling
Free," got translated in the Japanese market into "When
smoking Salem, you feel so refreshed that your mind seems
to be free and empty."
When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South
America, it was apparently unaware that "no va" means "it
won't go." After the company figured out why it wasn't
selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to
the Caribe.
Ford had a similar problem in Brazil when the Pinto
flopped. The company found out that Pinto was Brazilian
slang for "tiny male genitals". Ford pried all the nameplates
off and substituted Corcel, which means horse.
When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its
ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and
embarrass you."
However, the company's mistakenly thought the spanish
word "embarazar" meant embarrass. Instead the ads said
that "It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."
An American t-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the
spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of
the desired "I Saw the Pope" in Spanish, the shirts
proclaimed "I Saw the Potato."
Chicken-man Frank Perdue's slogan, "It takes a tough man
to make a tender chicken," got terribly mangled in another
Spanish translation. A photo of Perdue with one of his birds
appeared on billboards all over Mexico with a caption that
explained "It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused."
Hunt-Wesson introduced its Big John products in French
Canada as Gros Jos before finding out that the phrase, in
slang, means "big breasts." In this case, however, the name
problem did not have a noticeable effect on sales.
Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the
name of a notorious porno mag.
In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated
the name into Schweppes Toilet Water.
Japan's second-largest tourist agency was mystified when it
entered English-speaking markets and began receiving
requests for unusual sex tours. Upon finding out why, the
owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist Company changed its
name.
A magazine recently ran a "Dilbert Quotes" contest. They were looking for
people to submit quotes from their real life Dilbert-type managers. Here
are the top 12 finalists:
As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building
using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and
employees will receive their cards in two weeks.
(This is the winning quote from Fred Dales at Microsoft Corp in Redmond,
WA.)
What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter.
(Lykes Lines Shipping)
E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be
used only for company business.
(Accounting manager, ElectricBoat Company)
This project is so important, we can't let things that are more
important interfere with it.
(Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)
Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule. No one will
believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for
months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's
time to tell them.
(R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp.)
My Boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that only
needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she
couldn't edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected.
(CIO of Dell Computers)
Quote from the Boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say."
(Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)
My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I
told my Boss, he said she died so that I would have to miss work on the
busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to
Friday. He said, "That would be better for me."
(Shipping executive, FTD Florists)
"We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going
to discuss it with the employees."
(Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)
We recently received a memo from senior management saying: "This is to
inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the subject
mentioned above."
(Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)
One day my Boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a
project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough.
He said "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to
ask for it!"
(New business manager Hallmark Greeting Cards.)
As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo reviewing
our company's training programs and materials. In the body of the memo in
one of the sentences I mentioned the "pedagogical approach" used by one of
the training manuals.
The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was called
into the HR director's office, and told that the executive vice president
wanted me out of the building by lunch. When I asked why, I was told that
she wouldn't stand for perverts (paedophilia?) working in her company.
Finally, he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be
fired - and the word "pedagogical" circled in red.
The HR manager was fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in
his dictionary and made a copy of the definition to send back to her, he
told me not to worry. He would take care of it. Two days later, a memo to
the entire staff came out directing us that no words which could not be
found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A
month later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created my
resignation memo by pasting words together from the Sunday paper.
(Taco Bell Corporation).
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