16 Simple Ways to Connect with Anyone & Be Unforgettable Instantly

16 Simple Ways to Connect with Anyone & Be Unforgettable Instantly

1. Make friends. This is the foundation. Making genuine connections is nothing more than making friends. When you’re about to approach someone, ask, “How would I treat this person if they were my close friend or someone I’d want to be a close friend?” You don’t have hidden agendas and constantly push products and talk about yourself with your friends. You put friends first. You listen to them. You hear their problems so you can help in any way you can. Act accordingly.
2. Add immediate & real value. Meeting people is about making their lives better. Whether that’s by giving them a smile, a new job, your favorite book, a free logo sketch for their new business or anything in between – there is a way to help everyone. See everyone as a chance to add value. Give like crazy, embrace generosity and make others more successful.
3. Know what matters to them. Do your research. The more specific your help can be, the better. This comes from learning all you can about the people you want to meet. Not to manipulate, but so you can actually do something meaningful for them. Read their blogs and books, take their courses, sign up for their newsletters, learn about their interests, family, passions and charity work. Anything is game. With today’s online tools, there is no excuse not to learn about someone before trying to interact with them. Rapport become instantaneous.
4. Find common ground. Everyone has something in common. See it as a fun challenge to find what it is. The faster you can find shared ideas, beliefs and interests, the quicker you can relate. Start with a common school, restaurant, home town or favorite TV show. Continue to go deeper.
5. Pay attention. The easiest way to be interesting is to be interested. Find excitement in what you can learn from others. Hear what they say. Listen and learn about what matters to them. Not so you can say  something back as soon as possible, but so you can get a window into their world. People want to tell their story. Be the person excited to hear it.
6. Show your passion. You must be interesting. The best way to do this (aside from listening like crazy) is by embracing your passions, working towards an idea or cause and having a set of beliefs you’re deeply excited about that you openly share with others. Passion is an entire module in How to Connect with Anyone for just this reason. No one likes talking to lemmings. Live and connect with passion. This is the surest way to be someone worth talking to, and everyone is capable of it.
7. Be uniquely YOU. Don’t try to look and sound like someone else, and don’t hold back! Be vulnerable and open. Share your real story and goals. Tell others about your wife, kids and parenting struggles. Talking about the weather does not build connection. Being real does.
8. Use the most important word in the world. Remember their names. Nothing feels better than hearing your own name, especially from someone you just met. And “I’m not good with names,” does not fly. No one is good with names unless they practice! Write them down the second you hear them. Repeat it out loud. Associate a fun image or idea with the person. Do whatever it takes to remember. Sadly, this alone puts you on a whole new level.
9. Be the connector. Bring groups together. Host events. Introduce friends who have similar interests. Make it your job to bring the right people together. There is no more powerful service you can provide.
10. Lead an interesting life. Live a life worth hearing about – most importantly for you, but for those around you as well. Do things you don’t normally do. Just being in new surroundings will cause you to interact with a new group of people without even trying. The more things you do and try, the more things you’ll have to talk about and the more fun you’ll have!
11. Tell stories. People connect on energy and emotion, not facts and stats. Communicate with stories as often as possible and encourage others to tell theirs. Know the fun stories of your life and share them with others.
12. Wear a conversation piece. I’m not saying you wear a pair of swim goggles on your forehead (although that would certainly get attention), but having something that’s visibly and uniquely you, can give people a fun thing to talk about. Like the guy Scott who wears a name tag every day. When people ask why he has his name written on his shirt, he replies “so people ask about it – it makes meeting people super easy.” Maybe for you it’s crazy dress shirts, a bow tie or a fun hat. I always tip with two-dollar bills – one of the easiest ways to make someone’s day. Instant smile.
13. Be grateful and say thank you. Never miss an opportunity to thank people for even the smallest things, and especially if they helped you with something important. We withhold gratitude far too often. I am constantly sending short texts, emails, books, gifts and notes to people for things they’ve done for me, others or the world in general. Learn unique ways to show thanks. Everyone loves being appreciated.
14. See friends, not strangers. When you walk into a room, see the new faces not as strangers but as friends you have yet to meet. You see the world in a more similar way to others than you probably realize, especially if you’re at the same event or a part of the same communities. Approach accordingly.
15. Care about people. None of the above matters if you don’t actually care about the people around you. If you don’t care about the person being a part of your life, you likely won’t do any of this stuff. If we’re going to connect in a powerful way, we must reframe the way we look at people.
16. Show up (ideally, in the physical world). Connections don’t happen in your house or office. You must get out there, say hello and reach out. This can start with emails and online connecting, but that’s only the very beginning. Nothing makes a more powerful impact than meeting in the flesh. Don’t hide behind technology. Get out of your office and from behind the computer, work from a coffee shop instead of your living room and be in the places where other passionate people hang out.

9mm Luger: European popgun round that’s only popular because the ammo is cheap

9mm Luger:  European popgun round that’s only popular because the ammo is cheap for a centerfire cartridge.  Cheap ammo is a good thing for 9mm aficionados, because anything bigger and more dangerous than a cranky raccoon will likely require multiple well-placed hits.  Wildly popular all over the world, mostly in countries where people don’t carry guns, and cops don’t have to actually shoot people with theirs.

.45ACP:  Chunky low-pressure cartridge that hogs magazine space and requires a low-capacity design (if the gun needs to fit human hands) or a grip with the circumference of a two-liter soda bottle (if the gun needs to hold more than seven rounds).  Disturbingly prone to bullet setback, expensive to reload, fits only into big and clunky guns, and a recoil that has an inversely proportionate relationship with muzzle energy.

.40S&W:  Neutered compromise version of a compromise cartridge.  Even more setback-happy than the .45ACP, and setbacks are much more dangerous because of higher pressure and smaller case volume.  Manages to sacrifice both the capacity of the 9mm and the bullet diameter of the .45.  Twice the recoil of the 9mm for 10% more muzzle energy. 

.357SIG:  Highly overpriced boutique round that does the .40S&W one worse: it manages to share the capacity penalty of the .40 while retaining the small bullet diameter of the 9mm.  Noisy, sharp recoil, and 100% cost penalty for ballistics that can be matched by a good 9mm +P+ load.  Penetrates like the dickens, which means that the Air Marshals just had to adopt it…only to load their guns with frangible bullets to make sure they don’t penetrate like the dickens. 

.38 Special:  Legacy design with a case length that’s 75% longer than necessary for the mediocre ballistics of the round due to its blackpowder heritage.  On the plus side, the case length makes it easy to handle when reloading the gun.  This is a good thing because anyone using their .38 in self-defense against a 250-pound attacker hopped up on crack will need to empty the gun multiple times.

.32ACP:  Inadequate for anything more thick-skinned than Northeastern squirrels or inbred Austrian archdukes.  Semi-rimmed cartridge that is rimlock-happy in modern lightweight autoloaders.  Doesn’t go fast enough to expand a hollowpoint bullet, and it wouldn’t matter even if it did, because the bullet would only expand from tiny to small-ish.

.44 Magnum:  Overpowered round that generates manageable recoil and muzzle blast…if you’re a 300-pound linebacker with wrists like steel girders.  Often loaded to “Lite” levels that turn it into a noisy .44 Special while retaining the ego-preserving Magnum headstamp.  Considered the “most powerful handgun cartridge in the world” by people whose gun knowledge is either stuck in 1960, or who get their expertise in ballistics from Dirty Harry movies.

10mm Auto:  Super-high pressure cartridge that beats up gun and shooter alike.  Very brisk recoil in anything other than all-steel S&W boat anchors, with a shot recovery that’s measured in geological epochs for most handgun platforms.  Often underloaded to wimpy levels (see “.40 S&W”), which then gives it 9mm ballistics while requiring .45ACP magazine real estate.

.380ACP/9mm Kurz:  Designed by people who thought the 9mm Luger was a bit too brisk and snappy, which is pretty much all that needs to be said here.  Great round if you expect to only ever be attacked by people less than seven inches thick from front to back.

.357 Magnum:  Lots of recoil, muzzle blast, and noise to drive a 9mm bullet to reckless speeds in an attempt to make up for its low mass and diameter.  Explosive fragmentation and insufficient penetration with light bullets; excessive penetration and insufficient expansion with heavy ones.  Still makes only 9mm holes in the target.

5.7x28mm:  Ingenious way to make a centerfire .22 Magnum and then charge quadruple price for the same ballistics.  Awesome chambering for a police weapon…if you’re the park ranger in charge of the chipmunk exhibit at the zoo, and you want to make sure you can take one down if it turns rabid on you.

.25ACP:  Direct violation of the maxim “Never do an enemy a minor injury”.  Designed by folks who wanted to retain the bullet diameter of the .22 rimfire round, but take a bit of the excessive lethality out of it.  Favored by people who don’t feel comfortable carrying anything more dangerous than the neighbor kid’s rusty Red Ryder pellet gun.

M14/M1A: Clunky, heavy, and overpowered. Essentially a Garand tarted up

M14/M1A: Clunky, heavy, and overpowered.  Essentially a Garand tarted up with a removable magazine, in a half-baked attempt to adapt a 19th century rifle design philosophy to the mid-20th century.  Most often named as favorite infantry rifle by people who never had to hump a 10-pound wood-stocked rifle with lots of sharp protrusions and no collapsible anything on a three day exercise, or try to make it through a firefight with the standard battle load of five 20-round magazines.

AK-47: Crude and inaccurate bullet thrower designed by and for illiterate peasants.  Chambered in a caliber that manages to cut the ballistics of a proper .30-caliber battle rifle in half without passing on any weight savings to the grunt.  Ergonomics only suitable for Russian midgets.  Archaic cable trigger spring, crummy sights, no sight radius to speak of, no bolt hold-open device, and a clumsy safety.  Favorite infantry rifle of Middle Eastern goat herders, guys named Abdullah, and backwoods militia types who like the fact that it shoots cheap ammo and has ballistics like their familiar .30-30.

H&K G-3/HK-91: Ergonomics of a railroad tie.  No bolt release, and a locking system that requires three men and a mule to work the cocking handle.  Fluted chamber that mauls brass, and violent bolt motion that dings the brass that didn’t get mauled too badly by the chamber.  Stamped sheet metal construction, yet just as heavy as a milled steel M14.  Safety lever that requires unnaturally long thumbs, and a trigger pull that feels like dragging a piano across a gravel road with your index finger.  Favorite infantry rifle of Cold War nostalgics and third world commandos.

M-16/AR-15: Underpowered varmint rifle burdened by a crummy magazine design.  Nasty direct-impingement gas system that poops where it eats.  High sight line, flimsy alloy-and-plastic construction.  Generally favored by range commandos, tactical disciples, military vets who have never fired anything else for comparison, and Brownells addicts who a.) enjoy spending three times the cost on the rifle on bolt-on accoutrements, and b.) never have to use their rifle away from a dry, sunny range.

G-36: Flimsy plastic rifle with non-user adjustable fair-weather optics that fog up when a gnat farts in front of them.  Magazines that take up twice as much pouch space than others in the same caliber because of the "clever" coupling nubs on the magazine housing.  Skeleton folding stock that is about as suitable for butt-stroking as a plastic mess spork.  Twice as expensive as other rifles in its class because of the "HK" logo on the receiver.  Preferred infantry rifle of SWAT cops, and soldiers whose militaries haven’t been in shooting conflicts since the 1940s.

Glock: Butt-ugly plastic shooting appliance with the ergonomics of a caulking gun.  Five-pound trigger with no external safety makes it ill-suited for its target market (cops who shoot a hundred rounds a year for qualification).  Favored by gangbangers because the product name is short and rhymes with other short, rap-friendly words.

Beretta 92F/M9: Clunky and overweight rip-off of a clunky and overweight German design from the 1930s.  Shear-happy locking block, ergonomics that are only suited for linebackers, barely adequate sights that are partially non-replaceable, and low capacity for its size.  Favored by Eighties action movie fanatics and John Woo freaks.

1911: Overweight and overly complex piece of late 19th century technology.  Low capacity, useless sights in stock form, and a field-stripping procedure that requires three hands.  Favored by people who are at the cutting edge of handgun technology and combat shooting…of the 1960s.

H&K P7: Wildly overpriced, heavy for its size, low capacity in most iterations, and blessed with a finish that rusts if you give the gun a moist glance.  Gas tube has a tendency to roast the trigger finger after a box or two of ammo at the range.  Favored by gun snobs who think that paying twice as much for half the rounds means four times the fighting skill.

SIG Sauer: Top-heavy bricks with the rust resistance of an untreated iron nail at the bottom of a bucket of saltwater.  Ergonomically sound, if you have size XXL mitts.  Some minor parts made in Germany, so the manufacturer can charge 75% Teutonic Gnome Magic premium.  Favored by Jack Bauer fans and wannabe Sky Marshals/Secret Service agents.

Did I leave anyone out?  Feel free to add to the list.  Let’s not, however, have an argument about how very wrong I am about your favorite blaster, because, hey, I’m not.

Disclaimer: I’ve owned multiple copies of most of the designs mentioned above, and I think they’re all fine and dandy designs.  However, a good debater can take both sides of an argument at the drop of a hat, so take it as an exercise in debating skills, and try to pick nits about your particular darling.  Ready?  Go!

S&W Revolvers:  Archaic hand weapons from a bygone era, the missing link between flintlocks and autoloaders.  Low capacity, and reloading requires a lunch break.  Heavy for their capacity, unless you’re talking about airweight snubbies, which hurt as much on the giving end as they do on the receiving end.  Rare stoppages, but few malfunctions that don’t require gunsmith services, which are hard to come by in a gunfight.  Favored by crusty old farts who just now got around to trusting newfangled smokeless powder, and Dirty Harry fans with unrealistic ideas about the power of Magnum rounds vs. engine blocks.

SMLE/Enfield:  Refinement of a 19th century blackpowder design.  Weapon of choice for militaries who either couldn’t afford Mausers, or had ideological hangups about Kraut rifles.  Rimlock-prone cartridge that only barely classifies as a battle rifle round because of blackpowder derivation and insufficient lock strength of the platform.  Favored by Canadians with WWII nostalgia, and people who think that semi-auto rifles are a passing fad.

Browning HP:  Fragile frame designed around a popgun round.  Near-useless safety in stock form that’s only suitable for the thumbs of elementary schoolers.  Strangest and most circuitous way to trip a sear ever put into a handgun.  Favored by wannabe SAS commandos, wannabe mercenaries, and Anglophiles who think that hammer-down, chamber-empty carry is the most appropriate way to carry a defensive sidearm.

Benelli shotguns:  Plastic boutique scatterguns made by people with the martial acumen of dairy cows.  Hideously expensive, and therefore popular with police agencies that get their equipment financed by tax dollars. 

FN FAL:  Long and lightweight receiver that’s impossible to scope properly.  Overpowered round, twenty-round magazines that run dry in a blink, and an overall weapon length that’s only suitable for Napoleonic line infantry, but utterly useless for airborne and armored infantry.  Made by Belgians, a nation with a military history that is limited to waving German divisions through at the border.  Favored by Falklands veterans, Commonwealth fanboys, and people who think that dial-a-recoil gas systems are the epitome of infantry technology.

Look we are going to get this shit under control.

Look we are going to get this shit under control.

1st off. You are capable. Let's get that straight, and don't give me or yourself any excuses. You are fucking capable.

2nd. Get pissed. I mean it pissed off. You deserve better. That's right you. Time to get selfish. This is your life and it isn't going to get better unless you do something about it, and you are fucking going to do something about it because you are worth it.

3rd. The race is with no one but yourself. It's long, and it isn't about anyone but you.

4th. Get up early in the morning. Don't stay up late. You need your rest and you need to attack the day. Go to bed like midnight. Straight up gremlins rules. You want to be rested and ready to go so be in bed by 11:30. No caffeine after 9:00 PM.

1. When your alarm goes off feet hit the floor. Immediately it's the best trick I ever learned. Alarm off. Feet hit floor. You are up.
2. Next thing you do is exercise. Cardio for 30 minutes. That's all you need. Walk around your dorm/apartment complex. Go to the track. Ride your bike. Just move. You want to move forward than you have got to move.
3. Eat a good breakfast. This is your fuel for the day. Your body is the most valuable thing you own. Put premium petrol in that motherfucker.
4. Success is about doing the small things consistently to improve. There is no other blueprint. People look at the big picture and then look at their life and that's where discouragement happens. Fuck the big picture. Focus on the small things you can control and the big picture will come into focus. If you try to chase greatness you will never catch it because you aren't chasing the right thing. Chase effort. Effort leads to results, chase effort and greatness will start chasing you.
5. Focus on doing the small things and developing strong routines. Study, go to tutoring/study groups. Fuck that introvert shit this is about learning, and your mind needs nourishment.
6. Get pissed at video games. Get rid of steam, sell your xbox / console. Uninstall all that stuff. You know what you are missing? Fucking nothing. You will be missing a time sinkhole of button mashing where buttons are pressed and nothing ever really is accomplished as there is another game and another game and another game. Fuck that shit. Your life and time are valuable, and only things that grow you as a person will hold your attention.
7. Eat lunch and keep hydrated, eat snacks like almonds and things for extra boost.
8. Chunk down large tasks into small manageable bites. You have to read 12 chapters. Set an hour for two chapters. Break for 10 minutes. Write down what you learned. Go into hour two the same way. Break things down into small chunks and smash the fuck out of them. Let that momentum build.
9. Be obsessed with doing the small things well and be passionate about challenges. No Pressure, No Diamonds. Embrace adversity and be passionate to show yourself that you are mother fucking baller and can get shit done. Setbacks happen, but it isn't about the setback... it's how you respond to it. Do you tuck your tail between your legs, fuck no you don't. You get after it harder.

What to do if you fall through the ice.

The initial cold shock will cause you to start gasping and hyperventilating, it's very important to keep your head above water so you don't get a mouthful of water while hyperventilating. This lasts 1 to 3 minutes.

Go back to the section of ice you fell in from. It was holding you before you fell in, so it's the only place you know can support you.

Don't try and just pull yourself out, not sure why, but homeboy just tried and said he couldn't do it.

Instead, kick your legs like you're swimming, try and get your body horizontal, then drag yourself out.

Once you get out, don't stand up as there's too much weight on too small an area and you could crack more ice and fall back in. Roll away for a while, then crawl.

If you can't get out, make things easier for someone to help by keeping as much of your body out of the water as possible. He had his arms resting on top of the ice.

You'll become unconscious and drown before you die of hypothermia, so try and rest your arms on the ice and hope they'll freeze there so you don't slide back in.

If you're rescuing someone who fell in, get a rope or a long branch to assist. You don't want to get too close and risk falling in yourself.

So a moth goes into a podiatrists office.

So a moth goes into a podiatrists office.

"Come in," says the podiatrist, "What's the problem?"

The moth drops down into the nearest chair. The podiatrist says "What's the problem?

The moth says, “I don't even know where to start. First of all, my boss is a vicious tyrant who gets off on the petty torments he puts me through day in and day out, and I'm too spineless to stand up to him, so I just take it and I've gradually come to hate myself for it. Also, every morning I wake up to the same prune-face old crone to whom I pledged my vows so many years ago. I used to love her, but that love has become like some sun-festering beached whale trying to die. We lost our daughter last year to one of the bitterest, coldest winters we've ever had to face in this region. Isn't it funny, doc, how all the prayer circles and charity drives in the world amount to pretty much nothing in the face of that cold, impartial face of winter, that bleak, pounding, harsh fist of a callous environment, carrying on with its machinations without regard to our lives, loves, hopes and dreams? Isn't that hysterical, Doc? “

“And my other boy, and this is the hardest pill to swallow, doc, my other boy I no longer love him. As much as it pains me to say, when I look in his eyes all I see is the same cowardice that I catch when I take a glimpse of my own face in the mirror. If only the cowardice was stronger, then perhaps I could bring myself to reach over to that cocked and loaded gun that lays on the bedside behind me and end this hellish facade once and for all. “

“Believe me, Doc, I'd be doing the world a favor. I have nothing to look forward to but a continuation of this spiraling black hole that is my life, this existential cesspool that is the perpetuation of my lingering skid-mark on society. I despise people yet I crave their approval. I'm judgmental yet I care about nothing. I'm bitter, hateful and afraid. I'm alive yet I feel like the walking dead. This is it, Doc: I am a living, breathing, disease."

“Doc, sometimes I feel like a spider, even though I’m a moth, just barely hanging onto my web of everlasting fire underneath me. I’m not feeling good.”

The doctor stares at him for a while then finally says "Jeez, Moth, you definitely have some problems. But I'm a podiatrist. You need a psychiatrist. Why'd you come in here?"

The moth says, “Well, your light was on."

Douchebag Debating Techniques. Be Aware.

ANY WAY THE WIND BLOWS
Post should come from the apparent position of unconcern.
An effective strategy is deviating to a typically banal topic as more concerning or interesting.

ATTACK THE SOURCE
Undermine the credibility of the source either through misleading evidence or condescension.
This is especially effective for users who view comments first.

BASELESS INSULT
Post should be derogatory, while the actual approach can vary, with condescension being one of the most effective methods for reddit.
This is apparently ineffectual on the surface, but has a cumulative social effect of the feeling of being isolated.
This is an effective tactic for evoking apathy and hopelessness in dissenters over time.

BLAME DISTRIBUTION
Point out that absolute blame cannot be established for any one source.
This will create a perception of shared responsibility, thereby inhibiting specific criticism.
This is an excellent means of establishing apathy and hopelessness.

CLAIM VICTIMIZATION
Whether self or other, claiming the position of a victim in relation to dissent can play on emotions.
This is an effective tactic for deviating away from the original discussion.

COMMAND O' THE CHAIN
Using any number of methods, pull users into chained replies that deviate from the original topic whenever possible.
This is highly effective for diverting readers from more relevant, informative posts.

CONFIDENT DENIAL
Respond by denying the user's claims by claiming they are incorrect without providing evidence to the contrary.
This can give some uninformed users the impression of authority on the topic, thereby contributing to apathy and hopelessness.

CONVENIENT CONFUSION
Post from the apparent perspective of someone confused or unable to connect the dots on the issue.
A great tactic for deriving additional language from a dissenter in order to exploit and discredit them.

DON'T YOU WORRY ABOUT _____
Indicate a superior understanding of the topic being discussed from a place of confident unconcern.
It is preferable to choose a position that cannot be disproved by Joe Public, i.e. exclusive knowledge
Users will infer that the concerns are ill founded, thereby damaging credibility.

GENERALIZE AND MARGINALIZE OPINIONS
Play on existing perceptions of subreddits and reddit as a whole to marginalize dissent.
Some common examples include simply referring to: /r/atheism[2] , /r/politics[3] , /r/worldnews[4] , "the hive mind"
Additionally, the post need not even exist in one of these subreddits for this approach to be used.

HOLOCAUST WINS
A well established approach to deflecting comparisons involving Nazis, Hitler, and the Holocaust.
Response should typically appear to be from a place of condescension or emotion.

ISN'T GIFT WRAPPED
Attack the argument's presentation, typically as uncivil, aggressive, rude, etc.
Should angry dissent continue to present itself, utilize this reaction to further justify your point.
This is an effective tactic for increasing frustration and apathy.

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT A.K.A. FALSE OPTION
Respond with a false alternative solution to the issues being addressed.

NOSTRADOWNVOTES
Predict behavior of "The Hive Mind" with certainty.

NOT THE SOURCE
An effective strategy for countering specific criticism.
Response should indicate that the criticism is not directed at the real root of the issue.
Never define the root of the issue.

OTHER COUNTRIES DO IT
A means of distributing blame amongst multiple parties, so as to lessen the contrast (and perception) of negativity.
Response should indicate that the issue being called into question occurs all over the world.
Pointing out duration can be especially useful when said issue has existed elsewhere prior.

PERPETUATE APATHY
Establish or support the idea that there is no potential solution to a problem, or that the chosen solution will not work (without establishing an alternative to take its place).
This should typically be done from the apparent perspective of someone with a realistic or skeptical worldview.

REPRESENTATIVE
Speak from the apparent perspective of the majority of users.
This is effective for garnering support from uncertain redditors willing to go with the apparent flow.

TECHNICALITY
State literal facts while completely avoiding the context.
If appropriately constructed, false context will be inferred by the uninformed, and the informed will be hesitant to argue with a technicality.

X IS WORSE
An effective means of sidetracking a discussion.
This is especially useful when the new topic addresses an issue that might be much more difficult to resolve or has no apparent resolution.
Additionally, this can overwhelm some users as they feel focusing on a single issue (when there are much larger ones) will accomplish little.

9 out of every 10 atoms in the universe are hydrogen atoms, the first element and the major constituent of all stars.

The other 10 percent of all atoms are helium atoms. That's already 100 percent.

The rest of the periodic table, elements Lithium through Ununoctium, barely register on a cosmic scale. The rest of the universe, you and I included, is a rounding error.

The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty." Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute — get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed.

Robert Heinlein

The Sophisticate: "The world isn't black and white. No one does pure good or pure bad. It's all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else."
The Zetet: "Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view..."
-- Marc Stiegler, David's Sling

Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
The dead rising from the grave!
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

How to determine North with an analog watch

Point the hour hand at the sun. Then find the point directly between the hour hand and the 12. That position is south. The opposite side of the watch dial is north.

John le Carre

Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all-night drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen.

How Bias Hurts You

The brain isn’t a flawless piece of machinery. Although it is powerful and comes in an easy to carry container, it has it’s weaknesses. A field in psychology which studies these errors, known as biases. Although you can’t upgrade your mental hardware, noticing these biases can clue you into possible mistakes.

How Bias Hurts You

If you were in a canoe, you’d probably want to know about any holes in the boat before you start paddling. Biases can be holes in your reasoning abilities and they can impair your decision making.

Simply noticing these holes isn’t enough; a canoe will fill with water whether you are aware of a hole or not. But by being aware of the holes you can devise methods to patch them up. The entire domain of the scientific method has largely been an effort to overcome the natural inclination towards bias in reasoning.

Biases hurt you in a number of areas:

* Decision making. A number of biases can distort decision making. The confirmation bias can lead you to discount information that opposes existing theories. Anchoring can throw off negotiations by forcing you to sit around an arbitrary value.
* Problem solving. Biases can impede your creativity when solving problems. A framing bias can cause you to look at a problem too narrowly. And the illusion of control can cause you to overestimate the amount your actions influence results.
* Learning. Thinking errors also impact how you learn. The Von Restorff effect can cause you to overemphasize some information compared to the whole. Clustering illusions can also trick you into thinking you’ve learned more than you actually have.

Here are some common thinking errors:

1) Confirmation Bias

The confirmation bias is a tendency to seek information to prove, rather than disprove our theories. The problem arises because often, one piece of false evidence can completely invalidate the otherwise supporting factors.

Consider a study conducted by Peter Cathcart Wason. In the study, Wason showed participants a triplet of numbers (2, 4, 6) and asked them to guess the rule for which the pattern followed. From that, participants could offer test triplets to see if their rule held.

From this starting point, most participants picked specific rules such as “goes up by 2“ or “1x, 2x, 3x.” By only guessing triplets that fit their rule, they didn’t realize the actual rule was “any three ascending numbers.” A simple test triplet of “3, 15, 317“ would have invalidated their theories.

2) Hindsight Bias

Known more commonly under “hindsight is 20/20“ this bias causes people to see past results as appearing more probable than they did initially. This was demonstrated in a study by Paul Lazarsfeld in which he gave participants statements that seemed like common sense. In reality, the opposite of the statements was true.

3) Clustering Illusion

This is the tendency to see patterns where none actually exist. A study conducted by Thomas Gilovich, showed people were easily misled to think patterns existed in random sequences. Although this may be a necessary by product of our ability to detect patterns, it can create problems.

The clustering illusion can result in superstitions and falling for pseudoscience when patterns seem to emerge from entirely random events.

4) Recency Effect

The recency effect is the tendency to give more weight to recent data. Studies have shown participants can more easily remember information at the end of a list than from the middle. The existence of this bias makes it important to gather enough long-term data, so daily up’s and down’s don’t lead to bad decisions.

5) Anchoring Bias

Anchoring is a well-known problem with negotiations. The first person to state a number will usually force the other person to give a new number based on the first. Anchoring happens even when the number is completely random. In one study, participants spun a wheel that either pointed to 15 or 65. They were then asked the number of countries in Africa that belonged to the UN. Even though the number was arbitrary, answers tended to cluster around either 15 or 65.

6) Overconfidence Effect

And you were worried about having too little confidence? Studies have shown that people tend to grossly overestimate their abilities and characteristics from where they should. More than 80% of drivers place themselves in the top 30%.

One study asked participants to answer a difficult question with a range of values to which they were 95% certain the actual answer lay. Despite the fact there was no penalty for extreme uncertainty, less than half of the answers lay within the original margin.

7) Fundamental Attribution Error

Mistaking personality and character traits for differences caused by situations. A classic study demonstrating this had participants rate speakers who were speaking for or against Fidel Castro. Even if the participants were told the position of the speaker was determined by a coin toss, they rated the attitudes of the speaker as being closer to the side they were forced to speak on.

Studies have shown that it is difficult to out-think these cognitive biases. Even when participants in different studies were warned about bias beforehand, this had little impact on their ability to see past them.

What an understanding of biases can do is allow you to design decision making methods and procedures so that biases can be circumvented. Researchers use double-blind studies to prevent bias from contaminating results. Making adjustments to your decision making, problem solving and learning patterns you can try to reduce their effects.
Author: Scott H Young

SPARP

A good way to remember the freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment:

SPARP

Freedom of SPEECH
Freedom of the PRESS
Freedom to ASSEMBLE
Freedom of RELIGION
Freedom to PETION the government

R. Buckminster Fuller

"Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering."

Kurt Vonneguts Eight Rules For Writing Fiction.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

-- Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1999), 9-10.

50 Interesting Science Facts

50 Interesting Science Facts

1 – The speed of light is generally rounded down to 186,000 miles per second. In exact terms it is 299,792,458 m/s (equal to 186,287.49 miles per second).

2 – It takes 8 minutes 17 seconds for light to travel from the Sun’s surface to the Earth.

3 – 10 percent of all human beings ever born are alive at this very moment.

4 – The Earth spins at 1,000 mph but it travels through space at an incredible 67,000 mph.

5 – Every year, over one million earthquakes shake the Earth.

6 – When Krakatoa erupted in 1883, its force was so great it could be heard 4,800 kilometers away in Australia.

7 – Every second around 100 lightning bolts strike the Earth.

8 – Every year lightning kills 1000 people.

9 – In October 1999 an Iceberg the size of London broke free from the Antarctic ice shelf .

10 – If you could drive your car straight up you would arrive in space in just over an hour.

11 – Human tapeworms can grow up to 22.9m.

12 – The Earth is 4.56 billion years old…the same age as the Moon and the Sun.

13 – The dinosaurs became extinct before the Rockies or the Alps were formed.

14 – Female black widow spiders eat their males after mating.

15 – When a flea jumps, the rate of acceleration is 20 times that of the space shuttle during launch.

16 – If our Sun were just inch in diameter, the nearest star would be 445 miles away.

17 – Astronauts cannot belch – there is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.

18 – The air at the summit of Mount Everest, 29,029 feet is only a third as thick as the air at sea level.

19 – One million, million, million, million, millionth of a second after the Big Bang the Universe was the size of a …pea.

20 – DNA was first discovered in 1869 by Swiss Friedrich Mieschler.

21 – The molecular structure of DNA was first determined by Watson and Crick in 1953.

22 – The first synthetic human chromosome was constructed by US scientists in 1997.

23 – The thermometer was invented in 1607 by Galileo.

24 – Alfred Nobel invented dynamite in 1866.

25 – Wilhelm Rontgen won the first Nobel Prize for physics for discovering X-rays in 1895.

26 – The tallest tree ever was an Australian eucalyptus – In 1872 it was measured at 435 feet tall.

27 – Christian Barnard performed the first heart transplant in 1967 – the patient lived for 18 days.

28 – An electric eel can produce a shock of up to 650 volts.

29 – ‘Wireless’ communications took a giant leap forward in 1962 with the launch of Telstar, the first satellite capable of relaying telephone and satellite TV signals.

30 – The Ebola virus kills 4 out of every 5 humans it infects.

31 – In 5 billion years the Sun will run out of fuel and turn into a Red Giant.

32 – Giraffes often sleep for only 20 minutes in any 24 hours. They may sleep up to 2 hours (in spurts – not all at once), but this is rare. They never lie down.

33 – There are 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body.

34 – An individual blood cell takes about 60 seconds to make a complete circuit of the body.

35 – On the day that Alexander Graham Bell was buried the entire US telephone system was shut down for 1 minute in tribute.

36 – The low frequency call of the humpback whale is the loudest noise made by a living creature.

37 – A quarter of the world’s plants are threatened with extinction by the year 2010.

38 – Each person sheds 40lbs of skin in his or her lifetime.

39 – At 15 inches the eyes of giant squids are the largest on the planet.

40 – The Universe contains over 100 billion galaxies.

41 – Wounds infested with maggots heal quickly and without spread of gangrene or other infection.

42 – More germs are transferred shaking hands than kissing.

43 – The fastest speed a falling raindrop can hit you is 18mph.

44 – It would take over an hour for a heavy object to sink 6.7 miles down to the deepest part of the ocean.

45 – Around a million, billion neutrinos from the Sun will pass through your body while you read this sentence.

46 – The deepest part of any ocean in the world is the Mariana trench in the Pacific with a depth of 35,797 feet.

47 – Every hour the Universe expands by a billion miles in all directions.

48 – Somewhere in the flicker of a badly tuned TV set is the background radiation from the Big Bang.

49 – Even traveling at the speed of light it would take 2 million years to reach the nearest large galaxy, Andromeda.

50 – A thimbleful of a neutron star would weigh over 100 million tons.

Emo Phillips

"I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this."

Quote Of The Day

"Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets."

Interpreting an academic white paper

'It has long been known'... I didn't look up the original reference.

'A definite trend is evident'... These data are practically meaningless.

'While it has not been possible to provide definite answers to the questions'... An unsuccessful experiment, but I still hope to get it published.

'Three of the samples were chosen for detailed study'... The other results didn't make any sense.

'Typical results are shown'... This is the prettiest graph.

'These results will be in a subsequent report'... I might get around to this sometime, if pushed/funded.

'In my experience'... once
'In case after case'... twice
'In a series of cases'... thrice
'It is believed that'... I think.

'It is generally believed that'... A couple of others think so, too.

'Correct within an order of magnitude'... Wrong.

'According to statistical analysis'... Rumor has it.

'A statistically oriented projection of the significance of these findings'... A wild guess.

'A careful analysis of obtainable data'... Three pages of notes were obliterated when I knocked over a glass of pop.

'It is clear that much additional work will be required before a complete understanding of this phenomenon occurs'... I don't understand it.

'After additional study by my colleagues'... They don't understand it either.

'Thanks are due to Joe Blotz for assistance with the experiment and to Cindy Adams for valuable discussions'... Mr. Blotz did the work and Ms. Adams explained to me what it meant.

'A highly significant area for exploratory study'... A totally useless topic selected by my committee.

'It is hoped that this study will stimulate further investigation in this field'... I quit.

Stephen Wright One Liners: A Collection

A friend of mine once sent me a post card with a picture of the entire planet Earth taken from space. On the back it said, "Wish you were here."

I'm moving to Mars next week, so if you have any boxes...

It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it.

Cross country skiing is great if you live in a small country.

I went to the bank and asked to borrow a cup of money. They said, "What for?"
I said, "I'm going to buy some sugar."

I saw a bank that said "24 Hour Banking", but I don't have that much time.

I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums.

I like to go to art museums and name the untitled paintings...
Boy With Pail...Kitten On Fire...

I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time". So I ordered
French Toast during the Renaissance.

I went to this restaurant last night that was set up like a big buffet in the shape of an Ouija board. You'd think about what kind of food you want, and the table would move across the floor to it.

After they make styrofoam, what do they ship it in?

There's a pizza place near where I live that sells only slices. In the back you can see a guy tossing a triangle in the air.

I went to a general store. They wouldn't let me buy anything specifically.

I worked in a health food store once. A guy came in and asked me, "If I melt dry ice, can I take a bath without getting wet?"

I went to a 7-11 and asked for a 2x4 and a box of 3x5's.The clerk said, "ten-four."

I was in the grocery store. I saw a sign that said "pet supplies". So I did.Then I went outside and saw a sign that said "compact cars".

I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery. When I got there, the guy was locking the front door. I said, "Hey, the sign says you're open 24 hours." He said, "Yes, but not in a row."

I love to go shopping. I love to freak out salespeople. They ask me if they can help me, and I say, "Have you got anything I'd like?" Then they ask me what size I need, and I say, "Extra medium."

I saw a small bottle of cologne and asked if it was for sale. She said, "It's free with purchase." I asked her if anyone bought anything today.

I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.

There was a power outage at a department store yesterday. Twenty people were trapped on the escalators.

I bought my brother some gift-wrap for Christmas. I took it to the Gift Wrap department and told them to wrap it, but in a different print so he would know when to stop unwrapping.

For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier...I put them in the same room and let them fight it out. So then I filled the humidifier with wax and left it on. Now everything in my house is shiny.

Ever notice how irons have a setting for *permanent* press? I don't get it...

I couldn't find the remote control to the remote control.

I invented the cordless extension cord.

I saw a close friend of mine the other day...He said, "Stephen, why haven't you called me?" I said, "I can't call everyone I want. My new phone has no five on it." He said, "How long have you had it?" I said, "I don't know... my calendar has no sevens on it."

I plugged my phone in where the blender used to be. I called someone. They went "Aaaaahhhh..."

Today I dialed a wrong number...The other person said, "Hello?" and I said, "Hello, could I speak to Joey?"...They said, "Uh...I don't think so...he's only 2 months old." I said, "I'll wait."

I don't like the sound of my phone ringing so I put my phone inside my fish tank. I can't hear it, but every time I get a call I see the fish go like this <<<>>><<>><<<<. I go down to the pet store---"Gimme another ten guppies, I got a lotta calls yesterday."
My roommate got a pet elephant. Then it got lost. It's in the apartment somewhere.

I installed a skylight in my apartment...The people who live above me are furious.

All of the people in my building are insane. The guy above me designs synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats. The lady across the hall tried to rob a department store...with a pricing gun...She said, "Give me all of the money in the vault, or I'm marking down everything in the store."

While I was gone, somebody rearranged on the furniture in my bedroom. They put it in EXACTLY the same place it was. When I told my roommate, he said: "Do I know you?"

In my house there's this light switch that doesn't do anything. Every so often I would flick it on and off just to check. Yesterday, I got a call from a woman in Germany. She said, "Cut it out."

Doing a little work around the house. I put fake brick wallpaper over a real brick wall, just so I'd be the only one who knew. People come over and I'm gonna say, "Go ahead, touch it...it feels real."

In my house on the ceilings I have paintings of the rooms above...so I never have to go upstairs.

One time the power went out in my house and I had to use the flash on my camera to see my way around. I made a sandwich and took fifty pictures of my face. The neighbors thought there was lightning in my house.

All the plants in my house are dead---I shot them last night. I was teasing them by watering them with ice cubes.

I have a microwave fireplace in my house...The other night I laid down in front of the fire for the evening in two minutes.

Winny and I lived in a house that ran on static electricity...If you wanted to run the blender, you had to rub balloons on your head. If you wanted to cook, you had to pull off a sweater real quick.

I bought a house, on a one-way dead-end road. I don't know how I got there.

I went to the hardware store and bought some used paint. It was in the shape of a house. I also bought some batteries, but they weren't included. So I had to buy them again.

My house is made out of balsa wood, so when I want to scare the neighborhood kids I lift it over my head and tell them to get out of my yard or I'll throw it at them.

The other night I came home late, and tried to unlock my house with my carkeys. I started the house up. So, I drove it around for a speeding, and a cop pulled me over. He asked where I lived. I said, "right here, officer". Later, I parked it on the freeway, got out, and yelled at all the cars, "Get out of my driveway!"

My house is on the median strip of a highway. You don't really notice, except I have to leave the driveway doing 60 MPH.

For a while I didn't have a car...I had a helicopter...no place to park it, so I just tied it to a lamp post and left it running...(slow glance upward)

I hooked up my accelerator pedal in my car to my brake lights. I hit the gas, people behind me stop, and I'm gone.

I replaced the headlights in my car with strobe lights, so it looks like I'm the only one moving.

I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window. I put a new engine in my car, but forgot to take the old one out. Now my car goes 200 miles per hour. The harmonica sounds amazing.

I watched the Indy 500, and I was thinking that if they left earlier they wouldn't have to go so fast.

I had to stop driving my car for a while...the tires got dizzy.

My neighbor has a circular driveway...he can't get out.

I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near the place.

I have an answering machine in my car. It says, "I'm home now. But leave a message and I'll call when I'm out."

Last year we drove across the country. We switched on the driving...every half mile...We had one cassette tape to listen to on the entire trip...I don't remember what it was.

I saw a sign: "Rest Area 25 Miles". That's pretty big. Some people must be really tired.

A cop stopped me for speeding. He said, "Why were you going so fast?" I said, "See this thing my foot is on? It's called an accelerator. When you push down on it, it sends more gas to the engine. The whole car just takes right off. And see this thing? This steers it."

I was going 70 miles an hour and got stopped by a cop who said, "Do you know the speed limit is 55 miles per hour?" "Yes, officer, but I wasn't going to be out that long..."

One time a cop pulled me over for running a stop sign. He said, "Didn't you see the stop sign?" I said, "Yeah, but I don't believe everything I read."

I got my driver's license photo taken out of focus on purpose. Now when I get pulled over the cop looks at it (moving it nearer and farther, trying to see it clearly)...and says, "Here, you can go."

The judge asked, "What do you plead?" I said, "Insanity, your honour, who in their right mind would park in the passing lane?"

When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot,then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I'm leaving.

Yesterday I parked my car in a tow-away zone...when I came back the entire area was missing.

I can remember the first time I had to go to sleep. Mom said, "Steven, time to go to sleep." I said, "But I don't know how." She said, "It's real easy. Just go down to the end of tired and hang a left." So I went down to the end
of tired, and just out of curiosity I hung a right. My mother was there, and she said "I thought I told you to go to sleep."

I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day because that means it's going to be up all night.

When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, "Did you sleep good?" I said, "No, I made a few mistakes."

I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.

One night I walked home very late and fell asleep in somebody's satellite dish. My dreams were showing up on TV's all over the world.

My girlfriend does her nails with white-out. When she's asleep, I go over there and write misspelled words on them.

I got up one morning and couldn't find my socks, so I called Information. She said, "Hello, Information." I said, "I can't find my socks." She said,"They're behind the couch." And they were!

I went into this bar and sat down next to a pretty girl. She looked at me and said, "Hey, you have two different colored socks on." I said, "Yeah, I know, but to me they're the same because I go by thickness."

I bought a self learning record to learn Spanish. I turned it on and went to sleep; the record got stuck. The next day I could only stutter in Spanish.

I was going to tape some records onto a cassette, but I got the wires backwards. I erased all of the records. When I returned them to my friend, he said, "Hey, these records are all blank."

Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish.

There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like an idiot.

I bought a dog the other day...I named him Stay. It's fun to call him..."Come here, Stay! Come here, Stay!" He went insane. Now he just ignores me and keeps typing.

I put contact lenses in my dog's eyes. They had little pictures of cats on them. Then I took one out and he ran around in circles.

The other day, I was walking my dog around my building...on the ledge. Some people are afraid of heights. Not me, I'm afraid of widths.

I spilled spot remover on my dog. He's gone now.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

(Referring to a glass of water:) I mixed this myself. Two parts H, one part O. I don't trust anybody!

They say we're 98% water. We're that close to drowning...(picks up his glass of water from the stool)...I like to live on the edge...

I bought some powdered water, but I don't know what to add to it.

I was born by Caesarian section...but not so you'd notice. It's just that when I leave a house, I go out through the window.

When I was little, my grandfather used to make me stand in a closet for five minutes without moving. He said it was elevator practice.

I didn't get a toy train like the other kids. I got a toy subway instead. You couldn't see anything, but every now and then you'd hear this rumbling noise go
by.

When I was a kid, I went to the store and asked the guy, "Do you have any toy train schedules?"

When I was a little kid we had a sand box. It was a quicksand box. I was an only child...eventually.

When I was five years old I was on a merry go round. There was a gunshot nearby. The horses stampeded. There I was running down the street on a purple wooden horse.

When I was eight, I played Little League. I was on first; I stole third; I went straight across. Earlier that week, I learned that the shortest distance between two points was a direct line. I took advantage of that knowledge.

I used to own an ant farm but had to give it up. I couldn't find tractors small enough to fit it.

My friend Winnie is a procrastinator. He didn't get his birthmark until he was eight years old.

My school colors were clear. We used to say, "I'm not naked, I'm in the band."

When I have a kid, I want to buy one of those strollers for twins. Then put the kid in and run around, looking frantic. When he gets older, I'd tell him he used to have a brother, but he didn't obey.

Babies don't need a vacation, but I still see them at the beach...it pisses me off! I'll go over to a little baby and say, "What are you doing here? You haven't worked a day in your life!"

My friend has a baby. I'm recording all the noises he makes so later I can ask him what he meant.

You know how it is when you're reading a book and falling asleep, you're reading, reading...and all of a sudden you notice your eyes are closed? I'm like that all the time.

Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before.

Lots of comedians have people they try to mimic. I mimic my shadow.

I got a new shadow. I had to get rid of the other one...it wasn't doing what I was doing.

If you can't hear me, it's because I'm in parentheses.

Four years ago...no, it was yesterday.

Today I...No, that wasn't me.

Sometimes I...No, I don't.

I once tried to commit suicide by jumping off a building...I changed my mind at the last minute, so I just flipped over and landed on my feet. Two little kittens nearby saw what happened and one turned to the other and said, "See, that's how it's done."

I was going to commit suicide the other day, but I must not have been serious because I brought a beach towel.

I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.

What's another word for Thesaurus?

Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?

My grandfather invented Cliff's Notes. It all started back in 1912...Well, to make a long story short...

I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.

I'm writing an unauthorized autobiography.

I wrote a few children's books...not on purpose.

After they make styrofoam, what do they ship it in?

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.

I broke my arm trying to fold a bed. It wasn't the kind that folds.

I like to reminisce with people I don't know.

I like to skate on the other side of the ice.

I lost a button hole today.

I made wine out of raisins so I wouldn't have to wait for it to age.

I saw a man with a wooden leg, and a real foot.

I saw a subliminal advertising executive, but only for a second.

I saw a tree fall in the woods, and I didn't hear it.

I took a baby shower.

I used to be a bartender at the Betty Ford Clinic.

I was skydiving horizontally.

I washed mud, off of mud.

I'm so hyper...(said with a very dull voice)

If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?

If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer?

My VCR flashes 01:35, 01:35, 01:35, ...

"So, do you live around here often?"

Women...can't live with 'em...can't shoot 'em.

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

My dental hygienist is cute. Every time I visit, I eat a whole package of Oreo cookies while waiting in the lobby. Sometimes she has to cancel the rest of the afternoon's appointments.

One day I got on the usual bus, and when I stepped in, I saw the most gorgeous blond Chinese girl...I sat beside her. I said, "Hi," and she said, "Hi," and then I said, "Nice day, isn't it?," and she said, "I saw my analyst today and he says I have a problem." So I asked, "What's the problem?" She replied, "I can't tell you. I don't even know you..." I said, "Well sometimes it's good to tell your problems to a perfect stranger on a bus." So she said, "Well, my analyst said I'm a nymphomaniac and I only like Jewish cowboys...by the way, my name is Denise." I said, "Hello, Denise. My name is Bucky Goldstein..."

I got into an elevator at work and this man followed in after me...I pushed "1" and he just stood there...I said, "Hi, where you going?" He said, "Phoenix." So I pushed Phoenix. A few seconds later the doors opened, two tumbleweeds blew in... we were in downtown Phoenix. I looked at him and said, "You know, you're the kind of guy I want to hang around with." We got into his car and drove out to his shack in the desert. Then the phone rang. He said, "You get it." I picked it up and said, "Hello?"...The other side said, "Is this Steven Wright?"...I said, "Yes..." The guy said, "Hi, I'm Mr. Jones, the student loan director from your bank. It seems you have missed your last 17 payments, and the university you attended said that they received none of the $17,000 we loaned you. We would just like to know what happened to the money?" I said, "Mr. Jones, I'll give it to you straight. I gave all of the money to my friend Slick, and with it he built a nuclear weapon...and I would appreciate it if you never called me again."

The other day when I was walking through the woods, I saw a rabbit standing in front of a candle making shadows of people on a tree.

I had a dream that all the victims of The Pill came back...boy, were they mad!

The Stones, I love the Stones. I watch them whenever I can. Fred, Barney...

I like to fill my tub up with water, then turn the shower on and act like I'm in a submarine that's been hit.

It doesn't matter what temperature the room is, it's always room temperature.

I have two very rare photographs. One is a picture of Houdini locking his keys in his car. The other is a rare photograph of Norman Rockwell beating up a child.

I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all the beaches of the world...perhaps you've seen it.

I went to the eye doctor and found out I needed glasses for reading. So, I got some flip-up contact lenses.

Winny would spend all of his time practicing limbo. He got pretty good. He could go under a rug.

I filled out an application that said, "In Case Of Emergency Notify". I wrote "Doctor"...What's my mother going to do?

I had just received my degree in Calcium Anthropology...the study of milkmen.

He was a multi-millionaire. Wanna know how he made all of his money? He designed the little diagrams that tell which way to put batteries in.

I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.

A friend of mine is into Voodoo Acupuncture. You don't have to go. You'll just be walking down the street, and...ooooohhhhhh, that's much better...

I had a friend who was a clown. When he died, all his friends went to the funeral in one car.

My girlfriend and I went on a picnic. I don't know how she did it, but she got poison ivy on the brain. When it itched, the only way she could scratch it was to think about sandpaper.

My girlfriend asked me how long I was going to be gone on this tour. I said, "the whole time."

The sun got confused about daylight savings time. It rose twice. Everything had two shadows.

I wrote a song, but I can't read music so I don't know what it is. Every once in a while I'll be listening to the radio and I say, "I think I might have written that."

When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had any firearms with me. I said, "Well, what do you need?"

Some people think George is weird, because he has sideburns behind his ears. I think George is weird, because he has false teeth. with braces on them. George is a radio announcer, and when he walks under a bridge...you can't hear him talk.

If toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what happens if you strap toast on the back of a cat and drop it?

I saw a sign at a gas station. It said "help wanted". There was another sign below it that said "self service". So I hired myself. Then I made myself the boss. I gave myself a raise. I paid myself. Then I quit.

Every so often, I like to go to the window, look up, and smile for a satellite picture.

I used to be an airline pilot. I got fired because I kept locking the keys in the plane. They caught me on an 80 foot stepladder with a coathanger.

In Vegas, I got into a long argument with the man at the roulette wheel over what I considered to be an odd number.

I have a map of the United States...actual size. It says, "Scale: 1 mile = 1 mile." I spent last summer folding it. I also have a full-size map of the world. I hardly ever unroll it.

Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he just whipped out a quarter?

I want to get a tatoo of myself on my entire body, only 2" taller.

I'm kinda tired. I was up all night trying to round off infinity. Then I got bored and went out and painted passing lines on curved roads.

This is my impression of a bowling ball...(drags the mike along the floor, then lifts it)...gutter...

I was watching the Superbowl with my 92 year old grandfather. The team scored a touchdown. They showed the instant replay. He thought they scored another one. I was gonna tell him, but I figured the game he was watching was better.

I owed my friend George $25. For about three weeks I owed it to him. The whole time I had the money on me---he didn't know it. Walking through New York City, 2:30 in the morning, we got held up. He said, "Gimme all your money." I said, "Wait a minute." I said, "George, here's the 25 dollars I owe you." The the thief took a thousand dollars out of his own money and he gave it to George. At gunpoint he made me borrow a thousand dollars from George.

I was in a job interview and I opened a book and started reading. Then I said to the guy, "Let me ask you a question. If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?" He said, "I don't know." I said, "I don't want your job."

I busted a mirror and got seven years bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me five.

I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time.

I went camping and borrowed a circus tent by mistake. I didn't notice until I got it set up. People complained because they couldn't see the lake.

Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.

When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, in a duel I'll let you have the pen!

The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and doesn't stop until you get to work.

It's a good thing we have gravity, or else when birds died they'd just stay right up there. Hunters would be all confused.

How young can you die of old age?"

I went to the cinema, and the prices were: Adults $5.00, children $2.50. So I said, 'Give me two boys and a girl'.

On the other hand... You have different fingers.

I went into a clothes store the other day and a salesman walked up to me and said, 'Can I help you?' And I said, 'Yeah, do you got anything I like?' He said, 'What do you mean do we have anything you like?' I said, 'You started this'.

I used to work at a health food store. I got fired for drinking straight Bosco on the job.

If all the nations in the world are in debt, where did all the money go?

One time I went to a drive-in in a taxi cab. The movie cost me $95.

I've never seen electricity, so I don't pay for it. I write right on the bill, 'I'm sorry, I haven't seen it all month."

Why is it, 'A penny for your thoughts,' but, you have to 'put your two cents' in? Somebody's making a penny.

Sorry, my mind was wandering. One time my mind went all the way to Venus on mail order and I couldn't pay for it.

Don't you hate when your hand falls asleep and you know it will be up all night.

I was walking down the street and all of a sudden the prescription for my eye-glasses ran out ....

My friend Winnie is a procrastinator. He didn't get his birth mark til he was eight years old.

I turned my air conditioner the other way around, and it got cold out. The weatherman said, "I don't understand it. It was supposed to be 80 degrees today," and I said "Oops.".

I replaced the headlights in my car with strobe lights. Now it looks like I'm the only one moving.

I have a friend name Dennis. Both his parents are midgets, but not Dennis. He's a midget dwarf. He's the guy who poses for trophies.

You know how it is when you're walking up the stairs, and you get to the top, and you think there's one more step? I'm like that all the time.

and my favorite:

You know when you're leaning back in a chair and you go so far back that you almost fall over backwards, but at the very last instant you catch yourself? That's how I feel all the time. --

Douglas MacArthur's Principles of Leadership

Do I heckle my subordinates or strengthen and encourage them?

Do I use moral courage in getting rid of subordinates who have proven themselves beyond a doubt to be unfit?

Have I done all in my power by encouragement, incentive and spur to salvage to weak and erring?

Do I know by NAME and CHARACTER a maximum number of subordinates for whom I am responsible? Do I know them intimately?

Am I familiar with the technique, necessities, objectives and administration of my job?

Do I lose my temper at individuals?

Do I act in such a way as to make my subordinates WANT to follow me?

Do I delegate tasks which should be mine?

Do I arrogate everything to myself and delegate nothing?

Do I develop my subordinates by placing on each one as much responsibility as he can stand?

Am I interested in the personal welfare of each of my subordinates, as if he were a member of my family?

Have I the calmness of voice and manner to inspire confidence, or am I inclined to irascibility and excitability?

Am I a constant example to my subordinates in character, dress, deportment and courtesy?

Am I inclined to be nice to my superiors and mean to my subordinates?

Is my door open to subordinates?

Do I think more of POSITION than JOB?

Do I correct a subordinate in front of others?

George S. Patton's Speech to the Third U.S. Army

Be Seated.

Men, this stuff we hear about America wanting to stay out of the war, not wanting to fight, is a lot of bullshit. Americans love to fight - traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble player; the fastest runner; the big league ball players; the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win - all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost, not ever will lose a war, for the very thought of losing is hateful to an American.

You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be feared. Every man is frightened at first in battle. If he says he isn't, he's a goddamn liar. Some men are cowards, yes! But they fight just the same, or get the hell shamed out of them watching men who do fight who are just as scared. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some get over their fright in a minute under fire, some take an hour. For some it takes days. But the real man never lets fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to this country and his innate manhood.

All through your army career you men have bitched about "This chickenshit drilling." That is all for a purpose. Drilling and discipline must be maintained in any army if for only one reason -- INSTANT OBEDIENCE TO ORDERS AND TO CREATE CONSTANT ALERTNESS. I don't give a damn for a man who is not always on his toes. You men are veterans or you wouldn't be here. You are ready. A man to continue breathing must be alert at all times. If not, sometime a German son-of-a-bitch will sneak up behind him and beat him to death with a sock full of shit.

There are 400 neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily all because one man went to sleep on his job -- but they were German graves for we caught the bastard asleep before his officers did. An Army is a team. Lives, sleeps, eats, fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is a lot of crap. The bilious bastards who wrote that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real fighting, under fire, than they do about fucking. We have the best food, the finest equipment, the best spirit and the best fighting men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity these poor sons-of-bitches we are going up against. By God, I do!

My men don't surrender. I don't want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he is hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight. That's not just bullshit, either. The kind of man I want under me is like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a Lugar against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun aside with one hand and busted hell out of the Boche with the helmet. Then he jumped on the gun and went out and killed another German: All this with a bullet through his lung. That's a man for you.

All real heroes are not story book combat fighters either. Every man in the army plays a vital part. Every little job is essential. Don't ever let down, thinking your role is unimportant. Every man has a job to do. Every man is a link in the great chain. What if every truck driver decided that he didn't like the whine of the shells overhead, turned yellow and jumped headlong into the ditch? He could say to himself, "They won't miss me -- just one in thousands." What if every man said that? Where in hell would we be now? No, thank God, Americans don't say that! Every man does his job; every man serves the whole. Every department, every unit, is important to the vast scheme of things. The Ordnance men are needed to supply the guns, the Quartermaster to bring up the food and clothes to us -- for where we're going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last man in the mess hall, even the one who heats the water to keep us from getting the GI shits has a job to do. Even the chaplain is important, for if we get killed and if he is not there to bury us we'd all go to hell.

Each man must not only think of himself, but of his buddy fighting beside him. We don't want yellow cowards in this army. They should all be killed off like flies. If not they will go back home after the war and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed brave men. Kill off the goddamn cowards and we'll have a nation of brave men.

One of the bravest men I ever saw in the African campaign was the fellow I saw on top of a telegraph pole in the midst of furious fire while we were plowing toward Tunis. I stopped and asked what the hell he was doing up there at that time. He answered, "Fixing the wire, sir." "Isn't it a little unhealthy right now?," I asked. "Yes sir, but this goddamn wire's got to be fixed." There was a real soldier. There was a man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how great the odds, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty might appear at the time.

You should have seen those trucks on the road to Gabes. The drivers were magnificent. All day and all night they rolled over those son-of-a-bitching roads, never stopping, never faltering from their course, with shells bursting around them all the time. We got through on good old American guts. Many of these men drove over forty consecutive hours. These weren't combat men. But they were soldiers with a job to do. They did it -- and in a whale of a way they did it. They were part of a team. Without them the fight would have been lost. All the links in the chain pulled together and that chain became unbreakable.

Don't forget, you don't know I'm here. No word of the fact is to be mentioned in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell became of me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this Army. I'm not even supposed to be in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the goddamn Germans. Someday I want them to raise up on their hind legs and howl, "Jesus Christ, it's the goddamn Third Army and that son-of-a-bitch Patton again."

We want to get the hell over there. We want to get over there and clear the goddamn thing up. You can't win a war lying down. The quicker we clean up this goddamn mess, the quicker we can take a jaunt against the purple pissing Japs an clean their nest out too, before the Marines get all the goddamn credit.

Sure, we all want to be home. We want this thing over with. The quickest way to get it over is to get the bastards. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin. When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a Boche will get him eventually, and the hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one. We'll win this war but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans we've got more guts than they have.

There is one great thing you men will all be able to say when you go home. You may thank God for it. Thank God, that at least, thirty years from now, when you are sitting around the fireside with your grandson on your knees, and he asks you what you did in the great war, you won't have to cough and say, "I shoveled shit in Louisiana."
1

American English vs. English English

American English vs. English English

A
Acetaminophen = Paracetamol
Airplane = Aeroplane
Aluminum = Aluminium
Americans = Yanks
Apartment = Flat
Apartment House = Block of flats
Appetizer = Entree, Starter
Appointment Book = Diary
Archeology = Archaeology
Argentina = The Argentine
Argentinian = Argentine
Argument = Row, argy-bargy

B
Baby Carriage = Pram
Babysitter = Minder
Backpack = Rucksack
Badger = Brock
Baked Potato = Jacket potato
Bandaid = Elastoplast (both brand name bandages)
Bangs = Fringe
Bank Teller = Cashier
Bar = Pub
Barrette = Slide
Baseboard = Skirting-board
Bathroom = Loo, Water closet, W.C.
Battery (car) = Accumulator
Bedspread = Eiderdown or Duvet
Beef extract = Bovril (brand name)
Billion = Trillion
Bleachers = Terrace
Bobby pin = Hair pin
Bodyguard = Minder
Boots (rubber) = Wellies, Wellingtons
Boss = Gaffer
Boy = Lad
Braces (for the teeth) = Brace
Broccoli = Rabe Calabrese
Buttocks = Bum

C
Cabbage and potato = Bubble and squeak
Cafeteria = Refectory
Call = Ring
Can = Tin
Candy = Sweets
Carpenter = Cabinet Maker, Joiner
Carried away = Over the top
Catalog = Catalogue
Cents = Pence
Chapstick = Lip Balm
Chat (noun) = Natter
Chat (verb) = Natter, Rabbit
Check (bank) = Cheque
Check (restaurant) = Bill
Checkers = Draughts
Checking account = Current account
Chips = Crisps
Cigarette = Fag
Classy = Upmarket
Closet (bedroom) = Wardrobe
Clumsy = Cackhanded
Collect Call = Reverse Charge Call
Color = Colour
Comforter = Duvet
Commercial = Advertisment
Condom = Sheath
Conductor = Guard, clippie (Scotland)
Cookie = Biscuit
Cotton Candy = Candy Floss
Cotton = Cotton wool
Counterclockwise = Anticlockwise
Cracker = Savoury biscuit
Crazy (person) = Nutter
Credit = Hire purchase
Crib = Cot
Cross Walk = Zebra Crossing, Pedestrian Crossing
Crossing Guard = Lollipop Man
Crotch = Crutch
Cupcake = Fairy Cake
Curator = Keeper
Curb = Kerb

D
Dead End = Close, Cul de sac
Dessert = Afters, Pudding
Detour = Diversion
Diaper = Nappy, Napkin
Doctor's exam room = Surgery
Dollar = BillNote
Dropout = School leaver
Drugstore = Chemist
Drunk = Blotto, legless, paralytic, pissed
Dump = Tip
Duplex = Semi-Detached House

E
Easy task = Doddle
Editorial = Leader
Eggplant = Aubergine
Elated = Over the Moon
Electrician = Sparky
Elevator = Lift
Emergency Room = Casualty
England = Blighty
Eraser = Rubber
Exercise Class = Keep Fit
Exhausted = Knackered
Expensive = Dear

F
Fall = Autumn
Faucet T= ap
Favorite = Favourite
Feeble-minded = Dotty
Fellow = Bloke, Chap
Fire (verb) = Sack
Fire Department = Fire Brigade
Fish Store = Fishmongers'
Flashlight = Torch
Flirt = Tart
Fourteen Pounds = One stone
Freeway (Expressway) = Motorway, Carriageway
French Fries = Chips
Fruit Store = Fruiterers'

G
Garage sale = Jumble sale, boot sale
Garbage Bag = Bin liner
Garbage Can = Bin
Garbageman = Dustman
Garter Belt = Suspenders
Gas heater = Gas fire
Gas = Petrol
Gelatin = Jelly
Gizzards = Offal
Glasses = Bins, Specs
Glue = Gum
Go away = Naff off, sod off
Golashes = Wellingtons, Wellies
Golden raisins = Sultanas
Grade = Form
Granola = Muesli
Gray = Grey
Ground Beef = Mince
Gutter = Gully
Guy = Bloke, Chap

H
Ham = Gammon
Hamburger bun = Bap
Hardware store = Ironmongers'
Healthfood = Wholefood
Heater (electric) = Electric fire
Heater (gas) = Gas fire
Hedge = Hedgerow
Highrise = Tower block
Highway = Carriageway, Motorway
Honor = Honour
Hood = Bonnet
Hooligan = Yob, Yobbo
Horny = Randy
Horse = Chestnut Conker
House (one story) = Bungalow
Humor = Humour
Hungry = Peckish

I
Inclusive = All-in
Instruction = Tuition
Intermission = Interval
Interrogate =Vet

J
Jail = Gaol
Jello = Jelly
Jelly J= am
Jewelry = Jewellery
Juice Concentrate = Squash

K
Kerosene = Paraffin
Kiss = Snog

L
Ladybug = Ladybird
Lady's room = Ladies'
Lawyer = Barrister, Solicitor
Leash = Lead
Lemonade = Non-carbonated beverage
License plate = Number plate
Like (verb) = Fancy
Line = Queue
Lineup = Identity parade
Liquor store = Off license , Offy
Living room = Lounge

M
Mail (noun or verb) = Post
Mail Carrier = Postman, Posty
Mailbox = Postbox
Main street = High street
Maneuver = Manoeuvre
Math = Maths
Menopause = The Maenopause
Men's room = Gents
Middle of nowhere = Back of beyond
Model (of sorts) = Page 3 girl
Molasses = Treacle
Mold = Mould
Monkey Wrench = Spanner
Moron = Berk
Motor Home = Caravan
Mover = Removal man
Movie = Film
Movie = Theater Cinema
Moving = Removal
Moving truck = Removal van
Muffler = Silencer

N
Nail polish = Nail varnish
Naked = Starkers
Napkin = Serviette
National Holiday = Bank Holiday
Nauseous = Sick, Seedy
Nerd = Wally
Newcastle (person from) = Geordie
Newscaster = Presenter
Nothing = Nought, bugger-all
Nudist = Naturist

O
On/Off Ramp = Slip Road
Oven = Cooker
Overalls = Dungarees
Overpass = Flyover

P
Pacifier = Dummy
Pajamas = Pyjamas
Panties = Pants, Knickers
Pants = Trousers
Paper Towel = Kitchen towel, Kitchen Paper
Parade = Carnival
Parka = Anorak
Parking lot = Car park
Party favor = Cracker
Pedestrian crossing = Subway
Perfect = Spot on
Period (in punct.) = Full stop
Pharmacist = Chemist
Picnic Basket = Picnic Hamper
Pie Crust = Pastry Base
Pimple = Spot
Pin = Brooch
Plastic Tape = Sellotape (brand name)
Plastic wrap Clingfilm (brand name)
Pleasant = Homely
Pleased = Chuffed
Police Car = Panda car
Policeman = Bobby
Pool = Snooker
Popsicle = Ice lolly
Potato Chips = Crisps
Pregnant = Bun in the oven
Prenatal = Antenatal
Preppie = Sloane Ranger
Prison = The nick
Private school = Public school
Prom =Ball
Propeller = Air screw
Public School = State school
Push up = Press up
Put to sleep = Put down

Q
Quarrel =Row

R
Railroad Tie = Sleeper
Raincoat = Mac, mackintosh
Raise = Rise
Realtor = Estate Agent
Relish = Pickle
Rent = Hire
Reserve = Book
Rest stop = Lay-by
Roast = Joint
Robe = ressing Gown
Run = Ladder
Rutabaga = Swede

S
Sand Box = Sand Pit
Sandwich = Butty , Sarney
Santa Claus = Father Christmas
Saran Wrap = Clingfilm (Both are brand names)
SATs = A-levels (college entrance exams)
Sausage & potatoes = Bangers and mash
Sausage= Banger
Scalper = Tout
Scotch Tape = Sellotape (Both are brand names)
Sedan = Saloon car
Seedy = Downmarket
Sell = Flog
Senior Citizen = OAP (Old Age Pensioner)
Shopping Bag = Carrier bag
Shopping Cart/Basket= Trolley
Sick = Nauseous
Sideburns = Sideboards
Sidewalk = Pavement
Sir = Squire, Guv'nor
Slate (noun) = List of candidates for election
Slate (verb) = Designate for action or appointment
Slowpoke = Slowcoach
Sneakers = Daps, Trainers, Plimsolls,Pumps
Sneakers = Trainers, Plimsolls,Pumps
Snow Peas = Mange Tout
Soccer = Football
Spay = Doctor
Spelled = Spelt
Spoiled = Off
Squash = Marrow
Steal = Nick, Pinch
Stingy = Mean
Stopper = Bung
Street = Musician Busker
Stroller = Pram, Pushchair
Stupid = Daft, Gormless
Styrofoam = Polystyrene
Subway = Underground
Superbowl of Soccer = FA Cup
Suspenders = Braces
Sweater = Jumper ,Pullover

T
Take-Out = Take-Away
Talk show = Chat show
Taxi stand = Rank
Tenement = Housing estate
Testicles = Bollocks
Thank you = Cheers, Ta Ta
Thicket = Copse
Thumb Tack = Drawing Pin
Tic Tac Toe = Naughts and Crosses
Tire = Tyre
Toilet = Loo
Toothpick = Cocktail Stick
Toss = Bung
Track Housing = Housing Estate
Traffic Circle = Roundabout
Traffic Jam = Tailback
Trailor = Caravan
Trash Bag = Bin liner
Trash Can = Bin
Trash = Rubbish
Truck = Lorry
Trunk = Boot
Turnip = Swede
Tuxedo = Dinner Jacket
TV = Telly
Two Weeks = Fortnight

U
Umbrella = Brolly
Underpants (men's) = Y-fronts
Underpants (women's) = Pants, Knickers
Undershirt = Vest
Unemployed = Redundant
Unstable = Wonky

V
Vacation = Holiday
Very = Bloody
Vest = Waistcoat
Prostitute = Vice Girl
Vinyl Top (of car) = Hood

W
Wallet (Woman's) = Purse
Washcloth = Flannel
Whine = Whinge
Windshield = Windscreen
Wine (cheap) = Plonk
Woman (attractive) = Crumpet

Y
Yard = Garden
Yard sale = umble sale
Years = Yonks
You're Welcome [not used in Britain]

Z
Zee (the letter)= Zed
Zip code = Postal code
Zucchini = Courgette