A _____ Walks Into a Bar
The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation
A _____ Walks Into a Bar
The phrase A ______ walks into a bar has provided the take-off point for an uncountable number of jokes over the years. No matter what one’s opinion is of bars, we hope that everyone can appreciate the lessons in English grammar contained in the clever sentences that follow:
A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.
A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.
Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”
A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.
Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.
A question mark walks into a bar?
A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.
Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Get out—we don’t serve your type.”
A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.
A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.
Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.
A synonym strolls into a tavern.
At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar—fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.
A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.
Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.
A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.
An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.
The conditional would have walked into a bar, had it only known.
A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.
The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.
A dyslexic walks into a bra.
A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.
An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television getting drunk and smoking cigars.
A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.
A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.
A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.
If the article or the existing discussions do not address a thought or question you have on the subject, please use the "Comment" box at the bottom of this page.
What a clever way of teaching English! I still don’t know why the noun declined to conjugate
Off the top of my head:
A period walks into a bar, full stop.
An alliteration boldly bounces into a bar and later walks away with a wobble.
An onomatopoeia walks into a bar without a sound.
Thanks so much for the great articles!
The noun must be Latin – Latin nouns decline, as do Latin teachers so they say.
Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Get out—we don’t serve your type.”
Hah, a virtual font of humor.
An incomplete sentence into a bar.
A double contraction walks into a bar although it oughtn’t’ve.
An alliteration arrives at an authentic Alabama alehouse and asks for applejack.
An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening with his old friend, a drunk and a felon.
A synonym strolls into a tavern.
An asterisk walks into a bar and sits with a quiet bibliography…
A zeugma walks into a bar and the middle of a fierce argument. It knocks down a shot of bourbon and a pugnacious drunk. It leaves a generous tip and out the back door.
Clever. Many of us just learned a new word.
A synecdoche walks into a bar and Hollywood turns it into a sitcom that runs for 11 seasons.
A tautology walks into a bar, raises its glass upward, and announces to everyone present, “this is the first beer of the rest of your life!”
An ellipsis walks into a…well it appeared to be a bar.
An anagram WIAB, sat down, and looked around smugly.
A spoonerism balked into a war, and couldn’t work out why everyone was confused.
An exaggeration walked into a stupendous bar and ordered an exquisitively elegant drink.
A misspelling walked into a bar to soshalize with its friends.
An antonym stayed in the bar.
A rhyme walked into a bar; and sat down wearily, it’d come so far.
A giraffe goes into a bar. The bartender says, “Why the soft ‘g’?”
You mean an interrobang walked into a bar?!
What are these jokes called literature wise? Is there a special name for them?
No, there is no special name.
I like Mark Twain’s remark “I’d rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.” (And of course I had to see all these grammar points brought to mind at the same time in one neat collection to recognize that this favorite quote of mine about declension is an example of a zeugma. Thanks, Gary L. Dryfoos!)
Two intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sat. They ate. They left.
An epistrophe walks into a bar, an epiphora walks into a bar, an antistrophe walks into a bar.
Into a bar an anastrophe walks.
Oh apostrophe, you walked into a bar, even though you’re a figure of speech.
An anaphora walks into a bar, an anaphora walks into a pub, an anaphora walks into a drinking establishment.
Compound pronouns walk into his and her bars.
An alliteration ambles alcohol-ward.
An anagram walks into a bar, awaits lank bro.
A mistranslation trabaja en una barra.