The rules was written by Frank L. Visco and originally published in the June 1986 issue of Writers' digest.
- Avoid Alliteration. Always.
- Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
- Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
- Employ the vernacular.
- Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
- Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
- It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
- Contractions aren’t necessary.
- Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
- One should never generalize.
- Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
- Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
- Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
- Profanity sucks.
- Be more or less specific.
- Understatement is always best.
- Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
- One word sentences? Eliminate.
- Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
- The passive voice is to be avoided.
- Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
- Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
- Who needs rhetorical questions?
- Don’t look now but a tarantula is stalking you
- Stay calm and don’t panic. A big toad is staring at you at this very moment. You shouldn’t have ordered frog legs.
- You are about to inherit a lifetime supply of Cheese Puffs
- Whatever snack food you had for lunch has just been recalled
- If you can’t read this fortune cookie, it is because you need glasses
- You should have taken a shower this morning. You smell like a dead moose.
- Good news! Your ex-girlfriends are inviting you to a special reunion. Body armor is highly recommended.
- You are going to live forever. A Vampire is about to bite you in the neck.
- You are about to get a new leash on life. It’s about time. Your dog has been uncomfortable with the old leash.
- Wisdom comes with age. You’ll also receive wrinkles, constipation, and nose hairs.
- Your garbage disposal is indisposed at the moment. Chew on that thought.
- You have a lot of toxic assets. It’s time for a colonoscopy.
- Here’s something that is sure to give you a lift. You have just received a one-way ticket to heaven.
- If you are hot under the collar, the rest of you must be boiling inside
- You are about to be recruited for the pothole patrol. Go ahead and take the plunge. We need to have some deep thinkers.
A man took his wife to the Rodeo and one of the exhibits is that of breeding bulls.
They went up to the first pen and there was a sign that said, "This bull mated 50 times last year."
The wife poked her husband in the ribs and said, "He mated 50 times last year."
They walked a little further and saw another pen with a sign that said, "This bull mated 120 times last year."
The wife hit her husband and said, "That's more than twice a week! You could learn a lot from him."
They walked further and a third pen had a bull with a sign saying,
"This bull mated 365 times last year." The wife got really excited and said, That's once a day. You could REALLY learn something from this one."
The husband looked at her and said, "Go up and ask him if it was with the same cow."
These two hunters went moose hunting every year without success.
Finally they came up with a foolproof plan. (emphasis on fool)
They got themselves a very authentic cow moose costume and learned the mating call of a cow moose.
The plan was to hide in the costume, lure in the bull, then come out of the costume and shoot the bull.
So, they set themselves up on the edge of a clearing, in their costume, and began to give the moose love call.
Before too long their call was answered by bull in the forest.
They called again, the bull answered closer to them.
They called again, the bull answered, and came crashing out of the forest and into the clearing.
As the bulls’ pounding hoof beats got closer the guy in front said, “OK, let’s get out and get him”!
After a moment, that seemed like an eternity, the guy in the back shouts - “THE ZIPPER IS STUCK, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO!?!”
The front guy says, “Well, I’m gonna start nibbling grass, but you better start to brace yourself!”
A man left a snow-filled street in Chicago for vacation to Florida. His wife was on a business trip and was planning to join him there the next day. When the man reached his hotel room, he decided to send a quick note on e-mail to his wife. Unable to find the scrap of paper on which he had written her e-mail address, he did his best to type it in from his memory.
Unfortunately for him he missed one letter and his note was directed to an elderly preacher’s wife, whose husband had passed away only a day before he sends the note. When the grieving widow checked her mail, she looked at the monitor and let out a piercing scream and fell on the floor.
Hearing the scream, her family rushed into her room and saw the
note on the screen which says that :
“Dearest wife, i just checked in. everything is prepared for
your arrival tomorrow. sure it is hot down here. i will be expecting
you tomorrow. love you”
One day an at home wife is alone and the doorbell rings.
She opens it to a guy, "Hi, is Tony home?"
The wife replies, "No, he went to the store, but you can wait here if you want."
So they sit down and after a while of silence the friend says "You know Sara, you have the greatest breasts I have ever seen. I'd give you a hundred buck just to see one."
Sara thinks about it for a second and figures, what the hell - a hundred bucks! She opens her robe and shows one to him for a few seconds. He promptly thanks her and throws a hundred bucks on the table. They sit there a while longer and guy then says "That was so amazing I've got to see both of them. I'll give you another 100 dollars if I could just see the both of them together."
Sara amazed by the offer sits and thinks a bit about it and thinks, heck, why not? So she opens her robe and gives Chris a nice long chance to cop a look.
A while later Tony arrives back home from the store. The wife goes up to him, "You know, your friend Chris came over."
Tony thinks about it for a second and says, "Well did he drop off the 200 bucks he owes me?"
A farmer was sitting in a bar getting drunk.
A man came in and asked the farmer, "Hey, why are you sitting here, on this beautiful day, getting drunk?"
The farmer shook his head and replied, "Some things you just can't explain."
"So what happened that's so horrible?", the man asked as he sat down next to the farmer.
"Well," the farmer said, "Today, I was sitting by my cow, milking her.
Just as I got the bucket full, she lifted her left leg and kicked over the bucket."
"Okay," said the man, "but that's not so bad."
"Some things you just can't explain," the farmer replied, "I took her left leg and tied it to the post on her left.
Well, I sat back down and continued to milk her. Just as I got the bucket full, she took her right leg and kicked over the bucket."
The man laughed, "Again?"
The farmer nodded, and replied, "Some things you just can't explain.
I took her right leg this time and tied it to the post on the right.
Well I sat back down and began milking her again. Just as I got the bucket full, the stupid cow knocked over the bucket with her tail. Some things you just can't explain."
"So, what did you do?"
"Well," the farmer said, "I didn't have anymore rope, so I took off my belt and tied her tail to the rafter.
At that moment, my pants fell down and my wife walked in...Some things you just can't explain."
A woman starts dating a doctor. Before too long, she becomes pregnant and they don't know what to do.
About nine months later, just about the time she is going to give birth, a priest goes into the hospital for a prostate gland infection.
The
doctor says to the woman,
"I know what we'll do. After I've operated on the priest, I'll give the baby to him and tell him it was a miracle."
"Do you think it will work?" she asks.
"It's worth a try." he says. So, the doctor delivers the baby and then operates on the priest.
After the operation he goes in to the priest and says, "Father, you're not going to believe this.".
"What?" asks the priest, "what happened?".
"You gave birth to a child!".
"But that's impossible!" says the priest.
"I just did the operation," insists the doctor, "it's a miracle! Here's your baby."
About fifteen years go by, and the priest realises he must tell his son the truth.
One day, he sits the boy down and says,
"Son, I have something to tell you. I'm not your father." The son says,
"What do you mean, you're not my father?" The priest replies,
"I am your mother. The archbishop is your father.".
