Time flies when you're having fun, and our collection of funny jokes about time will help you make the most of every moment. Laugh your way through the day with our hilarious jokes.
Check them out now!
Weird never felt so funny.
- Updated:
2024-12-22.
Selected time jokes:
Save time on laundry by spending all your time naked.
A man went to his doctor with an unusual issue.
"Every time I pass gas, it sounds like ‘Honda," he said.
The doctor frowned and shook his head.
“I can’t help you, but I know who can,” the doctor said. He made me an appointment with a Chinese dentist.
A couple of days later, unsure what kind of help a Chinese doctor would be for his embarrassing problem, the man showed up for the appointment.
“Open up your mouth and let me look at your teeth,” the Chinese doctor told him.
Seconds later, he said, “Ah, so! Here’s problem. You have abscess!”
“What possibly could an abscess have to do with making my fart sound like Honda?” the man asked.
The dentist replied; "Have you not heard old Chinese proverb -- 'Abscess makes the fart go Honda'? "
If I had a dollar for every time algebra has helped me in real life, I'd have x dollars.
How do people get bodies in a suitcase? It takes me all my time to get 3 shirts and a couple of pairs of pants in!
More time jokes...
When a dad joke has been around a long time does it become a grandpa joke?
Every time I go tp see the doctor they always ask 'How are you today?" "If I was good I wouldn't be here!"
I wrote a screen play about love in the time of Kotex.
It was a period piece.
No one would produce it. Bloody fools!
Jeff Bezos was in space for longer than the amount of time Amazon Warehouse employees are allowed to spend in the restroom.
So I caught my girl cheating again.
This time I caught her doing it with my Dad and before that my brother like seriously. So I was wondering if anyone know how I can tell her I just want to be cousins.
I purposely bought the same grill my neighbor has, so every time it needs to be cleaned, I just switch them at night.
Cops have a hard time catching fat criminals.
They are always at large and on top of that its impossible to narrow down on them.
The police recently arrested a man selling "secret formula" tablets he claimed gave eternal youth.
When going through their files they noticed it was the fifth time he was caught for committing this same criminal medical fraud.He had earlier been arrested in 1794, 1856, 1928 and 1983.
Confuse your doctor by putting on rubber gloves at the same time he does.
Q: How do boyfriends exercise on the beach?
A: By sucking in their stomachs every time they see a bikini.
A man goes to his doctor and complains that his wife hasn’t wanted to have sex with him for the past six months.
The doctor tells the man to bring his wife in so he can talk to her and hopefully determine what the problem is.
The following day, the wife goes to the doctor’s office. The doctor asks her what’s wrong, why doesn’t she want to have sex with her husband?
“Oh, that’s easily explained. For the past six months,” the wife says, “I’ve been taking a cab to work every morning. I don’t have any money. The cab driver asks me, ‘Are you going to pay today, or what?’ So, I take an ‘or what’.”
“Then, when I get to work,” she continues, “I’m late, so the boss asks me, ‘Are we going to write this down in the book, or what?’ So, I take an ‘or what’.
I take a cab to go home after work and, as usual, I have no money. The cab driver asks me again, ‘So, are you going to pay this time, or what?’ Again, I take an ‘or what’.
So you see, doc, by the time I get home I’m all tired out and don’t want it anymore.”
“Yes, I see,” replies the doctor. “So, are we going to tell your husband, or what?”
I tried buying a train ticket online.
Each time it said: ‘Where do you want to go?’, I clicked on the “Home” icon.
It then made me start all over again.
What is a bed's least favourite time of year?
Spring break.
I always take time to reflect in front of a mirror.
Research shows that 100% of the time when someone says “oh no she didn’t!” she most definitely did.
Every time I take up a sport, or exercise I meet new people ... usually they're paramedics...but they're new people.
Oxymorons .....
1. Is it good if a vacuum really sucks?
2. Why is the third hand on the watch called the second hand?
3. If a word is misspelled in the dictionary, how would we ever know?
4. If Webster wrote the first dictionary, where did he find the words?
5. Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack?
6. Why does "slow down" and "slow up" mean the same thing?
7. Why does "fat chance" and "slim chance" mean the same thing?
8. Why do "tug" boats push their barges?
9. Why do we sing "Take me out to the ball game" when we are already there?
10. Why are they called "stands" when they are made for sitting?
11. Why is it called "after dark" when it really is "after light"?
12. Doesn't "expecting the unexpected" make the unexpected expected?
13. Why are a "wise man" and a "wise guy" opposites?
14. Why do "overlook" and "oversee" mean opposite things?
15. Why is "phonics" not spelled the way it sounds?
16. If work is so terrific, why do they have to pay you to do it?
17. If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?
18. If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?
19. If you are cross-eyed and have dyslexia, can you read all right?
20. Why is bra singular and panties plural?
21. Why do you press harder on the buttons of a remote control when you know the batteries are dead?
22. Why do we put suits in garment bags and garments in a suitcase?
23. How come abbreviated is such a long word?
24 Why do we wash bath towels? Aren't we clean when we use them?
25. Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?
26. Why do they call it a TV set when you only have one?
27. Christmas - What other time of the year do you sit in front of a dead tree and eat candy out of your socks?
28. Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway ?
I did a couple of laps around the gym today.
Maybe next time I'll actually park my car and go in.
I never said he’d been to prison…
…I just said he’d spent a lot of time behind bars…
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Henry Ford
My first high-school football game was a lot like my first time having sex… I was bloody and sore at the end, but at least my dad came.
When’s the worst time to get a heart attack?
When you’re playing Charades with a group of friends,
and it’s your turn!
My gf and I watched 3 movies back to back the other nite. I said next time she can be the one facing the TV .
How do people get bodies in a suitcase? It takes me all my time to get 3 shirts and a couple of pairs of pants in!
Finding a life partner is like putting down linoleum: lay it right the first time and you can walk all over it the rest of your life.
Somebody asked if I have time to spell Wonton backwards?
I said, “not now”...
I used to hate time travel when I was older.
I told an offensive joke last time I performed Comedy in Croatia.
The audience were Split.
I spoke to my dentist about how I get pains every time I drink coffee or tea. He asked ‘how long has this been going on for?’ I said, ‘I have been drinking tea and coffee for many years.’
Did you hear about the pirate that got upset every time his ship floated away...
...he had to take anchor management classes!
When's the best time to buy a trampoline?
At the Spring sales.
My teacher says that fish are more intelligent than we give them credit for. They spend a lot of time in schools.
Paddy is in court,and after an 8 day trial he suddenly pleads guilty.The judge says,"Why didn't you just plead guilty at first and save the court all this wasted time and money?"
Paddy says,"I thought I was innocent until I heard all of the evidence."
I got eczema, diarrhoea, gonorrhoea and haemorrhoids last week.!!
First time I've ever won a game of Scrabble.!!
My first flat was so close to Heathrow airport, that every time I went to the kitchen to make a sandwich, a stewardess told me to get back to my seat!
My Jewish GF and I decided it was time to get physical. It tuchas to a whole new level.
The Nazi’s catch 3 women spies, a waitress, teacher and a prostitute. They offer them 3 ways of dying, hanging,firing squad or 4ucked to death. The waitress picked hanging and they marched her off to hang her, the teacher chooses firing squad and they shoot her right there, the prostitute unsurprisingly choose being 4ucked to death. The SS commander takes her off to a barn and start 4ucking her, she reaches behind her and picks up a hay straw and starts tapping him on the head,the SS officer says “what the 4uck are you doing”,she says “by the time you’ve 4ucked me to death I’ll smashed your 4ucking head in”.
Once upon a time in France, 3 kittens were playing on a frozen pond. Suddenly, the ice broke and un, deux, trois, cat sank!
Right, this time I'm gonna try and go at least a month without any innuendos. Touch wood.
Do you realize every time you put your glasses on you make a spectacle of yourself?
Businessman Abe Greenberg phones a law office and says: "I want to speak to my lawyer."
The receptionist replies, "I'm sorry Mr Greenberg, but he died last week."
The next day Abe phones again and asks the same question. The receptionist replies, "I told you yesterday, he died last week."
The next day he calls again and asks to speak to his lawyer. By this time the receptionist is getting a little annoyed and says, "Mr Greenberg, I keep telling you that your lawyer died last week. Why do you keep calling?"
The guy says, "It gives me such pleasure to hear you say that."
Q. How do men exercise at the beach?
A. By sucking in their stomachs every time they see a bikini.
I met a woman in a bar and took her home. We started getting busy and I think she wanted me to fuck her in the ear. Every time I tried to stick it in her mouth, she kept turning her head.
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
Nothing is as easy as it looks.
Everything takes longer than you think.
If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
Corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.
If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.
If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first.
Every solution breeds new problems.
Abbott's Admonitions:
If you have to ask, you're not entitled to know.
If you don't like the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question.
Abrams's Advice: When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.
Rule of Accuracy: When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you know the answer.
Corollary: Provided, of course, that you know there is a problem.
Acheson's Rule of the Bureaucracy: A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.
Acton's Law: Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Ade's Law: Anybody can win -- unless there happens to be a second entry.
Airplane Law: When the plane you are on is late, the plane you want to transfer to is on time.
Alan's Law of Research: The theory is supported as long as the funds are.
Agnes Allen's Law: Almost anything is easier to get into than out of.
Allen's Axiom: When all else fails, follow instructions.
Alley's Axiom: Justice always prevails . . . three times out of seven.
Anderson's Law: Any system or program, however complicated, if looked at in exactly the right way, will become even more complicated.
Law of Annoyance: When working on a project, if you put away a tool that you're certain you're finished with, you will need it instantly.
Anthony's Law of the Workshop: Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the workshop.
Corollary: On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first always strike your toes.
Laws of Applied Confusion: The one piece that the plant forgot to ship is the one that supports 75% of the balance of the shipment.
Corollary: Not only did the plant forget to ship it, 50% of the time they haven't even made it.
Approval Seeker's Law: Those whose approval you seek the most give you the least.
Army Axiom: Any order that can be misunderstood has been misunderstood.
Army Law: If it moves, salute it; if it doesn't move, pick it up; if you can't pick it up, paint it.
Ashley-Perry Statistical Axioms:
Numbers are tools, not rules.
Numbers are symbols for things; the number and the thing are not the same.
Skill in manipulating numbers is a talent, not evidence of divine guidance.
Like other occult techniques of divination, the statistical method has a private jargon deliberately contrived to obscure its methods from nonpractitioners.
The product of an arithmetical computation is the answer to an equation; it is not the solution to a problem.
Babcock's Law: If it can be borrowed and it can be broken, you will borrow it and you will break it.
Bagdikian's Law of Editor's Speeches: The splendor of an editor's speech and the splendor of his newspaper are inversely related to the distance between the city in which he makes his speech and the city in which he publishes his paper.
Baker's Byroad: When you are over the hill, you pick up speed.
Baldy's Law: Some of it plus the rest of it is all of it.
Barber's Laws of Backpacking:
The integral of the gravitational potential taken around any loop trail you chose to hike always comes out positive.
Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to exactly the point of most pressure.
The weight of your pack increases in direct proportion to the amount of food you consume from it. If you run out of food, the pack weight goes on increasing anyway.
The number of stones in your boot is directly proportional to the number of hours you have been on the trail.
The difficulty of finding any given trail marker is directly proportional to the importance of the consequences of failing to find it.
The size of each of the stones in your boot is directly proportional to the number of hours you have been on the trail.
The remaining distance to your chosen campsite remains constant as twilight approaches.
The net weight of your boots is proportional to the cube of the number of hours you have been on the trail.
When you arrive at your chosen campsite, it is full.
If you take your boots off, you'll never get them back on again.
The local density of mosquitos is inversely proportional to your remaining repellent.
Barrett's Laws of Driving:
The vehicle in front of you is traveling slower than you are.
This lane ends in 500 feet.
Barr's Comment on Domestic Tranquility: On a beautiful day like this it's hard to believe anyone can be unhappy -- but we'll work on it.
Barth's Distinction: There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't.
Bartz's Law of Hokey Horsepuckery: The more ridiculous a belief system, the higher the probability of its success.
Baruch's Rule for Determining Old Age: Old age is always fifteen years older than I am.
Forthoffer's Cynical Summary of Barzun's Laws:
That which has not yet been taught directly can never be taught directly.
If at first you don't succeed, you will never succeed.
Baxter's First Law: Government intervention in the free market always leads to a lower national standard of living.
Baxter's Second Law: The adoption of fractional gold reserves in a currency system always leads to depreciation, devaluation, demonetization and, ultimately, to complete destruction of that currency.
Baxter's Third Law: In a free market good money always drives bad money out of circulation.
Becker's Law: It is much harder to find a job than to keep one.
Belle's Constant: The ratio of time involved in work to time available for work is usually about 0.6.
Benchley's Law: Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.
Berkeley's Laws:
The world is more complicated than most of our theories make it out to be.
Ignorance is no excuse.
Most problems have either many answers or no answer. Only a few problems have a single answer.
An answer may be wrong, right, both, or neither. Most answers are partly right and partly wrong.
A chain of reasoning is no stronger than its weakest link.
A statement may be true independently of illogical reasoning.
Most general statements are false, including this one.
An exception TESTS a rule; it NEVER PROVES it.
The moment you have worked out an answer, start checking it -- it probably isn't right.
If there is an opportunity to make a mistake, sooner or later the mistake will be made.
Being sure mistakes will occur is a good frame of mind for catching them.
Check the answer you have worked out once more -- before you tell it to anybody.
Estimating a figure may be enough to catch an error.
Figures calculated in a rush are very hot; they should be allowed to cool off a little before being used; thus we will have a reasonable time to think about the figures and catch mistakes.
A great many problems do not have accurate answers, but do have approximate answers, from which sensible decisions can be made.
Berra's Law: You can observe a lot just by watching.
Berson's Corollary of Inverse Distances: The farther away from the entrance that you have to park, the closer the space vacated by the car that pulls away as you walk up to the door.
Billings's Law: Live within your income, even if you have to borrow to do so.
Blaauw's Law: Established technology tends to persist in spite of new technology.
Blanchard's Newspaper Obituary Law: If you want your name spelled wrong, die.
Bok's Law: If you think education is expensive -- try ignorance.
Boling's Postulate: If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it.
Bolton's Law of Ascending Budgets: Under current practices, both expenditures and revenues rise to meet each other, no matter which one may be in excess.
Bombeck's Rule of Medicine: Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
Boob's Law: You always find something the last place you look.
Booker's Law: An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.
Boozer's Revision: A bird in the hand is dead.
Boren's Laws of the Bureaucracy:
When in doubt, mumble.
When in trouble, delegate.
When in charge, ponder.
Borkowski's Law: You can't guard against the arbitrary.
Borstelmann's Rule: If everything seems to be coming your way, you're probably in the wrong lane.
Boston's Irreversible Law of Clutter: In any household, junk accumulates to fill the space available for its storage.
Boultbee's Criterion: If the converse of a statement is absurd, the original statement is an insult to the intelligence and should never have been said.
Boyle's Laws:
When things are going well, someone will inevitably experiment detrimentally.
The deficiency will never show itself during the dry runs.
Information travels more surely to those with a lesser need to know.
An original idea can never emerge from committee in the original.
When the product is destined to fail, the delivery system will perform perfectly.
The crucial memorandum will be snared in the out-basket by the paper clip of the overlying correspondence and go to file.
Success can be insured only by devising a defense against failure of the contingency plan.
Performance is directly affected by the perversity of inanimate objects.
If not controlled, work will flow to the competent man until he submerges.
The lagging activity in a project will invariably be found in the area where the highest overtime rates lie waiting.
Talent in staff work or sales will recurringly be interpreted as managerial ability.
The "think positive" leader tends to listen to his subordinates' premonitions only during the postmortems.
Clearly stated instructions will consistently produce multiple interpretations.
On successive charts of the same organization the number of boxes will never decrease.
Branch's First Law of Crisis: The spirit of public service will rise, and the bureaucracy will multiply itself much faster, in time of grave national concern.
First Law of Bridge: It's always the partner's fault.
Brien's First Law: At some time in the life cycle of virtually every organization, its ability to succeed in spite of itself runs out.
Broder's Law: Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office.
Brontosaurus Principle: Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them in relation to their environment and to their own physiology; when this occurs, they are an endangered species.
Brooks's Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
(Jerry) Brown's Law: Too often I find that the volume of paper expands to fill the available briefcases.
(Sam) Brown's Law: Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.
(Tony) Brown's Law of Business Success: Our customer's paperwork is profit. Our own paperwork is loss.
Bruce-Briggs's Law of Traffic: At any level of traffic, any delay is intolerable.
Buchwald's Law: As the economy gets better, everything else gets worse.
Bucy's Law: Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.
Bunuel's Law: Overdoing things is harmful in all cases, even when it comes to efficiency.
Bureaucratic Cop-Out: You should have seen it when *I* got it.
Burns's Balance: If the assumptions are wrong, the conclusions aren't likely to be very good.
Bustlin' Billy's Bogus Beliefs:
The organization of any program reflects the organization of the people who develop it.
There is no such thing as a "dirty capitalist", only a capitalist.
Anything is possible, but nothing is easy.
Capitalism can exist in one of only two states -- welfare or warfare.
I'd rather go whoring than warring.
History proves nothing.
There is nothing so unbecoming on the beach as a wet kilt.
A little humility is arrogance.
A lot of what appears to be progress is just so much technological rococo.
Butler's Law of Progress: All progress is based on a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
Bye's First Law of Model Railroading: Anytime you wish to demonstrate something, the number of faults is proportional to the number of viewers.
Bye's Second Law of Model Railroading: The desire for modeling a prototype is inversely proportional to the decline of the prototype.
Cahn's Axiom (Allen's Axiom): When all else fails, read the instructions.
Calkin's Law of Menu Language: The number of adjectives and verbs that are added to the description of a menu item is in inverse proportion to the quality of the resulting dish.
John Cameron's Law: No matter how many times you've had it, if it's offered, take it, because it'll never be quite the same again.
Camp's Law: A coup that is known in advance is a coup that does not take place.
Campbell's Law: Nature abhors a vacuous experimenter.
Canada Bill Jones's Motto: It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.
Canada Bill Jones's Supplement: A Smith and Wesson beats four aces.
Cannon's Cogent Comment: The leak in the roof is never in the same location as the drip.
Cannon's Comment: If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the next morning you will have a flat tire.
Carson's Law It's better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick.
Cartoon Laws
Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over.
Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly. Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease.
Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter. Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout- perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction.
The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken. Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it inevitably unsuccessful.
All principles of gravity are negated by fear. Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight.
As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once. This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common as well among bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A 'wacky' character has the option of self- replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required.
Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot. This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generation, but at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science.
Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify.
Cavanaugh's Postulate: All kookies are not in a jar.
Law of Character and Appearance: People don't change; they only become more so.
Checkbook Balancer's Law: In matters of dispute, the bank's balance is always smaller than yours.
Cheops's Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
Chili Cook's Secret: If your next pot of chili tastes better, it probably is because of something left out, rather than added.
Chisholm's First Law and Corollary: see Murphy's Third and Fifth Laws.
Chisholm's Second Law: When things are going well, something will go wrong.
Corollaries:
When things just can't get any worse, they will.
Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.
Chisholm's Third Law: Proposals, as understood by the proposer, will be judged otherwise by others.
Corollaries:
If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will.
If you do something which you are sure will meet with everyone's approval, somebody won't like it.
Procedures devised to implement the purpose won't quite work.
No matter how long or how many times you explain, no one is listening.
The First Discovery of Christmas Morning: Batteries not included.
Churchill's Commentary on Man: Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on as though nothing has happened.
Ciardi's Poetry Law: Whenever in time, and wherever in the universe, any man speaks or writes in any detail about the technical management of a poem, the resulting irascibility of the reader's response is a constant.
Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Corollary (Asimov): When the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists, and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion -- the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, right.
Clarke's Second Law: The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Clarke's Law of Revolutionary Ideas: Every revolutionary idea -- in Science, Politics, Art or Whatever -- evokes three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the three phrases:
"It is completely impossible -- don't waste my time."
"It is possible, but it is not worth doing."
"I said it was a good idea all along."
Clark's First Law of Relativity: No matter how often you trade dinner or other invitations with in-laws, you will lose a small fortune in the exchange.
Corollary: Don't try it: you cannot drink enough of your in-laws' booze to get even before your liver fails.
Clark's Law: It's always darkest just before the lights go out.
Cleveland's Highway Law: Highways in the worst need of repair naturally have low traffic counts, which results in low priority for repair work.
Clopton's Law: For every credibility gap there is a gullibility fill.
Clyde's Law: If you have something to do, and you put it off long enough, chances are someone else will do it for you.
Cohen's Law: What really matters is the name you succeed in imposing on the facts -- not the facts themselves.
Cohen's Laws of Politics:
Law of Alienation: Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate.
Law of Ambition: At any one time, thousands of borough councilmen, school board members, attorneys, and businessmen -- as well as congressmen, senators, and governors -- are dreaming of the White House, but few, if any of them, will make it.
Law of Attraction: Power attracts people but it cannot hold them.
Law of Competition: The more qualified candidates who are available, the more likely the compromise will be on the candidate whose main qualification is a nonthreatening incompetence.
Law of Inside Dope: There are many inside dopes in politics and government.
Law of Lawmaking: Those who express random thoughts to legislative committees are often surprised and appalled to find themselves the instigators of law.
Law of Permanence: Political power is as permanent as today's newspaper. Ten years from now, few will know or care who the most powerful man in any state was today.
Law of Secrecy: The best way to publicize a governmental or political action is to attempt to hide it.
Law of Wealth: Victory goes to the candidate with the most accumulated or contributed wealth who has the financial resources to convince the middle class and poor that he will be on their side.
Law of Wisdom: Wisdom is considered a sign of weakness by the powerful because a wise man can lead without power but only a powerful man can lead without wisdom.
Cohn's Law: The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do anything. Stability is achieved when you spend all your time doing nothing but reporting on the nothing you are doing.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage.
Mr. Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.
Colson's Law: If you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.
Comins's Law: People will accept your idea much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.
Committee Rules:
Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner.
Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this stamps you as being wise.
Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the others.
When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed.
Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you popular -- it's what everyone is waiting for.
Commoner's Three Laws of Ecology:
No action is without side-effects.
Nothing ever goes away.
There is no free lunch.
Law of Computability: Any system or program, however complicated, if looked at in exactly the right way, will become even more complicated.
Law of Computability Applied to Social Science: If at first you don't succeed, transform your data set.
Laws of computer programming
Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
Any given program costs more and takes longer.
If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
Any program will expand to fill available memory.
The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output.
Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capabilities of the programmer who must maintain it.
Any non-trivial program contains at least one bug.
Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: There's always one more bug.
First Maxim of Computers: To err is human, but to really screw things up requires a computer.
Connolly's Law of Cost Control: The price of any product produced for a government agency will be not less than the square of the initial Firm Fixed-Price Contract.
Connolly's Rule for Political Incumbents: Short-term success with voters on any side of a given issue can be guaranteed by creating a long-term special study commission made up of at least three divergent interest groups.
Conrad's Conundrum: Technologie don't transfer.
Considine's Law: Whenever one word or letter can change the entire meaning of a sentence, the probability of an error being made will be in direct proportion to the embarrassment it will cause.
Conway's Law 1: If you assign N persons to write a compiler you'll get a N-1 pass compiler.
Conway's Law 2: In every organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired.
Cooke's Law: In any decisive situation, the amount of relevant information available is inversely proportional to the importance of the decision.
Cook's Law: Much work, much food; little work, little food; no work, burial at sea.
Coolidge's Immutable Observation: When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.
Cooper's Law: All machines are amplifiers.
Cooper's Metalaw: A proliferation of new laws creates a proliferation of new loopholes.
Mr. Cooper's Law: If you do not understand a particular word in a piece of technical writing, ignore it. The piece will make perfect sense without it.
Corcoroni's Laws of Bus Transportation:
The bus that left the stop just before you got there is your bus.
The amount of time you have to wait for a bus is directly proportional to the inclemency of the weather.
All buses heading in the opposite direction drive off the face of the earth and never return.
The last rush-hour express bus to your neighborhood leaves five minutes before you get off work.
Bus schedules are arranged so your bus will arrive at the transfer point precisely one minute after the connecting bus has left.
Any bus that can be the wrong bus will be the wrong bus. All others are out of service or full.
Cornuelle's Law: Authority tends to assign jobs to those least able to do them.
Corry's Law: Paper is always strongest at the perforations.
Courtois's Rule: If people listened to themselves more often, they'd talk less.
Crane's Law (Friedman's Reiteration): There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. ("tanstaafl")
Mark Miller's Exception to Crane's Law: There are no "free lunches", but sometimes it costs more to collect money than to give away food.
Crane's Rule: There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire someone, or forbid your kids to do it.
Cripp's Law: When traveling with children on one's holidays, at least one child of any number of children will request a rest room stop exactly halfway between any two given rest areas.
Cropp's Law: The amount of work done varies inversely with the amount of time spent in the office.
Culshaw's First Principle of Recorded Sound: Anything, no matter how bad, will sound good if played back at a very high level for a short time.
Cutler Webster's Law: There are two sides to every argument unless a man is personally involved, in which case there is only one.
Czecinski's Conclusion: There is only one thing worse than dreaming you are at a conference and waking to find that you are at a conference, and that is the conference where you can't fall asleep.
Darrow's Observation: History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history.
Darwin's Observation: Nature will tell you a direct lie if she can.
Dave's Law of Advice: Those with the best advice offer no advice.
Dave's Rule of Street Survival: Speak softly and own a big, mean Doberman.
Davidson's Maxim: Democracy is that form of government where everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Davis's Basic Law of Medicine: Pills to be taken in twos always come out of the bottle in threes.
de la Lastra's Law: After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed.
de la Lastra's Corollary: After an access cover has been secured by 16 hold-down screws, it will be discovered that the gasket has been ommitted.
Deadlock's Law: If the law-makers make a compromise, the place where it will be felt most is the taxpayer's pocket.
Corollary: The compromise will always be more expensive than either of the suggestions it is compromising.
Dean's Law of the District of Columbia: Washington is a much better place if you are asking questions rather than answering them.
First Law of Debate: Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference.
Decaprio's Rule: Everything takes more time and money.
Deitz's Law of Ego: The fury engendered by the misspelling of a name in a column is in direct ratio to the obscurity of the mentionee.
Dennis's Principles of Management by Crisis:
To get action out of management, it is necessary to create the illusion of a crisis in the hope it will be acted upon.
Management will select actions or events and convert them to crises. It will then over-react.
Management is incapable of recognizing a true crisis.
The squeaky hinge gets the oil.
Dhawan's Laws for the Non-Smoker:
The cigarette smoke always drifts in the direction of the non-smoker regardless of the direction of the breeze.
The amount of pleasure derived from a cigarette is directly proportional to the number of non-smokers in the vicinity.
A smoker is always attracted to the non-smoking section.
The life of a cigarette is directly proportional to the intensity of the protests from non-smokers.
Dieter's Law: Food that tastes the best has the highest number of calories.
Dijkstra's Prescription for Programming Inertia: If you don't know what your program is supposed to do, you'd better not start writing it.
Diogenes's First Dictum: The more heavily a man is supposed to be taxed, the more power he has to escape being taxed.
Diogenes's Second Dictum: If a taxpayer thinks he can cheat safely, he probably will.
Dirksen's Three Laws of Politics:
Get elected.
Get re-elected.
Don't get mad -- get even.
Principle of Displaced Hassle: To beat the bureaucracy, make your problem their problem.
Donohue's Law: Anything worth doing is worth doing for money.
Donsen's Law: The specialist learns more and more about less and less until, finally, he knows everything about nothing; whereas the generalist learns less and less about more and more until, finally, he knows nothing about everything.
Laws of Dormitory Life:
The amount of trash accumulated within the space occupied is exponentially proportional to the number of living bodies that enter and leave within any given amount of time.
Since no matter can be created or destroyed (excluding nuclear and cafeteria substances), as one attempts to remove unwanted material (i.e., trash) from one's living space, the remaining material mutates so as to occupy 30 to 50 percent more than its original volume.
Corollary: Dust breeds.
The odds are 6:5 that if one has late classes, one's roommate will have the earliest possible classes.
Corollary 1: One's roommate (who has early classes) has an alarm clock that is louder than God's own.
Corollary 2: When one has an early class, one's roommate will invariably enter the space late at night and suddenly become hyperactive, ill, violent, or all three.
Douglas's Law of Practical Aeronautics: When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the plane will fly.
Dow's Law: In a hierarchical organization, the higher the level, the greater the confusion.
Dror's First Law: While the difficulties and dangers of problems tend to increase at a geometric rate, the knowledge and manpower qualified to deal with these problems tend to increase linearly.
Dror's Second Law: While human capacities to shape the environment, society, and human beings are rapidly increasing, policymaking capabilities to use those capacities remain the same.
Ducharme's Precept: Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.
Dude's Law of Duality: Of two possible events, only the undesired one will occur.
Dunne's Law: The territory behind rhetoric is too often mined with equivocation.
Dunn's Discovery: The shortest measurable interval of time is the time between the moment one puts a little extra aside for a sudden emergency and the arrival of that emergency.
Durant's Discovery: One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.
Durrell's Parameter: The faster the plane, the narrower the seats.
Dyer's Law: A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper.
Economists' Laws:
What men learn from history is that men do not learn from history.
If on an actuarial basis there is a 50-50 chance that something will go wrong, it will actually go wrong nine times out of ten.
Edington's Theory: The number of different hypotheses erected to explain a given biological phenomenon is inversely proportional to the available knowledge.
Law of Editorial Correction: Anyone nit-picking enough to write a letter of correction to an editor doubtless deserves the error that provoked it.
Ehrlich's Rule: The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.
Ehrman's Commentary: Things will get worse before they will get better. Who said things would get better?
Eliot's Observation: Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.
Ellenberg's Theory: One good turn gets most of the blanket.
Emerson's Insight: That which we call sin in others is experiment for us.
Old Engineer's Law: The larger the project or job, the less time there is to do it.
The "Enough Already" Law: The more you run over a dead cat, the flatter it gets.
Extended Epstein-Heisenberg Principle: In an R & D orbit, only 2 of the existing 3 parameters can be defined simultaneously. The parameters are: task, time, and resources ($). 1) If one knows what the task is, and there is a time limit allowed for the completion of the task, then one cannot guess how much it will cost. 2) If the time and resources ($) are clearly defined, then it is impossible to know what part of the R & D task will be performed. 3) If you are given a clearly defined R & D goal and a definte amount of money which has been calculated to be necessary for the completion of the task, one cannot predict if and when the goal will be reached. 4) If one is lucky enough to be able to accurately define all three parameters, then what one is dealing with is not in the realm of R & D.
Epstein's Law: If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it.
Ettorre's Observation: The other line moves faster.
Corollary: Don't try to change lines. The other line -- the one you were in originally -- will then move faster.
Evans's Law of Politics: When team members are finally in a position to help the team, it turns out they have quit the team.
Evelyn's Rules for Bureaucratic Survival:
A bureaucrat's castle is his desk . . . and parking place. Proceed cautiously when changing either.
On the theory that one should never take anything for granted, follow up on everything, but especially those items varying from the norm. The greater the divergence from normal routine and/or the greater the number of offices potentially involved, the better the chance a never-to-be-discovered person will file the problem away in a drawer specifically designed for items requiring a decision.
Never say without qualification that your activity has sufficient space, money, staff, etc.
Always distrust offices not under your jurisdiction which say that they are there to serve you. "Support" offices in a bureaucracy tend to grow in size and make demands on you out of proportion to their service, and in the end require more effort on your part than their service is worth.
Corollary: Support organizations can always prove success by showing service to someone . . . not necessarily you.
Incompetents often hire able assistants.
Everitt's Form of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: Confusion (entropy) is always increasing in society. Only if someone or something works extremely hard can this confusion be reduced to order in a limited region. Nevertheless, this effort will stil result in an increase in the total confusion of society at large.
Eve's Discovery: At a bargain sale, the only suit or dress that you like best and that fits is the one not on sale.
Adam's Corollary: It's easy to tell when you've got a bargain -- it doesn't fit.
Nonreciprocal Laws of Expectations:
Negative expectations yield negative results.
Positive expectations yield negative results.
First Law of Expert Advice: Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut.
Faber's Laws:
If there isn't a law, there will be.
The number of errors in any piece of writing rises in proportion to the writer's reliance on secondary sources.
Fairfax's Law: Any facts which, when included in the argument, give the desired result, are fair facts for the argument.
Falkland's Rule: When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision.
Farber's First Law: Give him an inch and he'll screw you.
Farber's Second Law: A hand in the bush is worth two anywhere else.
Farber's Third Law: We're all going down the same road in different directions.
Farber's Fourth Law: Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.
Farnsdick's corollary: After things have gone from bad to worse, the cycle will repeat itself.
Farrow's Finding: If God had intended for us to go to concerts, He would have given us tickets.
Law of Fashion: Any given dress is: indecent 10 years before its time, daring 1 year before its time, chic in its time, dowdy 3 years after its time, hideous 20 years after its time, amusing 30 years after its time, romantic 100 years after its time, and beautiful 150 years after its time.
Rule of Feline Frustration: When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom.
Fetridge's Law: Important things that are supposed to happen do not happen, especially when people are looking.
Fett's Law of the Lab: Never replicate a successful experiment.
The Fifth Rule: You have taken yourself too seriously.
Finagle's Creed: Science is Truth. Don't be misled by fact.
Finagle's First Law: If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
Finagle's Second Law: No matter what result is anticipated, there will always be someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it happened according to his own pet theory.
Finagle's Third Law: In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake. Corollaries:
No one whom you ask for help will see it.
Everyone who stops by with unsought advice will see it immediately.
Finagle's Fourth Law: Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.
Finagle's Law According to Niven: The perversity of the universe tends to a maximum.
Finagle's Laws of Information:
The information you have is not what you want.
The information you want is not what you need.
The information you need is not what you can obtain.
The information you can obtain costs more than you want to pay.
Finagle's Rules: Ever since the first scientific experiment, man has been plagued by the increasing antagonism of nature. It seems only right that nature should be logical and neat, but experience has shown that this is not the case. A further series of rules has been formulated, designed to help man accept the pigheadedness of nature.
To study a subject best, understand it thoroughly before you start.
Always keep a record of data. It indicates you've been working.
Always draw your curves, then plot the reading.
In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
Experiments should be reproducible. They should all fail in the same way.
When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly.
Teamwork is essential; it allows you to blame someone else.
Always verify your witchcraft.
Be sure to obtain meteorological data before leaving on vacation.
Do not believe in miracles. Rely on them.
Fishbein's Conclusion: The tire is only flat on the bottom.
Fitz-Gibbon's Law: Creativity varies inversely with the number of cooks involved with the broth.
Flap's Law: Any inanimate object, regardless of its composition or configuration, may be expected to perform at any time in a totally unexpected manner for reasons that are either entirely obscure or completely mysterious.
Ford Pinto Rule: Never buy a car that has a wick.
Fortis's Three Great Lies of Life:
Money isn't everything.
It's great to be a Negro.
I'm only going to put it in a little way.
Three Lies According to Playboy:
The check's in the mail.
Anticipation is half the fun.
I promise I won't come in your mouth.
Hare's Additional Lie: This will hurt me more than it hurts you. Lowry's Additional Lie: I've never done this before.
Foster's Law: If you cover a congressional committee on a regular basis, they will report the bill on your day off.
Fowler's Law: In a bureaucracy, accomplishment is inversely proportional to the volume of paper used.
Fowler's Note: The only imperfect thing in nature is the human race.
Frankel's Law: Whatever happens in government could have happened differently, and it usually would have been better if it had.
Corollary: Once things have happened, no matter how accidentally, they will be regarded as manifestations of an unchangeable Higher Reason.
Franklin's Observation: He that lives upon Hope dies farting.
Franklin's Rule: Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.
Freeman's Law: Nothing is so simple it cannot be misunderstood.
Freemon's Rule: Circumstances can force a generalized incompetent to become competent, at least in a specialized field.
Fried's Law: Ideas endure and prosper in inverse proportion to their soundness and validity.
Laws of the Frisbee:
The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc straining to land under a car, just beyond reach. (The technical term for this force is "car suck".)
The higher the quality of a catch or the comment it receives, the greater the probability of a crummy return throw. ("Good catch. . . Bad throw.")
One must never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive than, "Watch this!" (Keep 'em guessing.)
The higher the costs of hitting any object, the greater the certainty it will be struck. (Remember: The disk is positive; cops and old ladies are clearly negative.)
The best catches are never seen. ("Did you see that?" "See what?")
The greatest single aid to distance is for the disc to be going in a direction you did not want. (Wrong way = long way.)
The most powerful hex words in the sport are: "I really have this down -- watch." (Know it? Blow it!)
In any crowd of spectators at least one will suggest that razor blades could be attached to the disc. ("You could maim and kill with that thing.")
The greater your need to make a good catch, the greater the probability your partner will deliver his worst throw. (If you can't touch it, you can't trick it.)
The single most difficult move with a disc is to put it down. ("Just one more!")
Frisch's Law: You cannot have a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.
Frothingham's Fallacy: Time is money.
Fudd's First Law of Opposition: If you push something hard enough, it will fall over.
Teslacle's Deviant to Fudd's Law: It goes in -- it must come out.
Funkhouser's Law of the Power of the Press: The quality of legislation passed to deal with a problem is inversely proportional to the volume of media clamor that brought it on.
Futility Factor (Carson's Consolation): No experiment is ever a complete failure -- it can always serve as a bad example, or the exception that proves the rule (but only if it is the first experiment in the series).
Fyffe's Axiom: The problem-solving process will always break down at the point at which it is possible to determine who caused the problem.