Regarding the hard and fast DTV Transition today, /.user ObsessiveMathsFreak had this to say:

REPENT! Repent ye geeky sinners! For the end of days is upon ye!

Lo! As it is written, there shall befall a great and terrible calamity upon all the kin of the nerdy, and their most precious gadgets and devices shall be laid low by the machinations of the wicked! And they shall lament, and make agitated phone calls even in the early hours of the late morning!

And there shall be a great moaning as the geeky rise to diagnose the woes of their parents and uncles and aunts and cousins and neighbors and co-workers and friends and even children! Naught will your warnings save you as the wretched shall pay no need. And ye shall be swamped with piteous wails and whinges as the masses of humanity beat down thy doors and fill up they inboxes with useless protestations and opinions and heed not thy councils.

Thou shalt spend thy last days overseeing the procurement and installation of countless digital devices. Yea, in peoples very living rooms! And thou shalt be condemned to maintain and provide unpaid support for each and every one of these cheap and buggy imports till the end of thy unhappy life.

Repent geeky sinners! Give up thy sinful social ways and cast off thy connections to society, like the mathematicians and programmers of old! Give up thy internet and telephone connections and families and social life! Give up and repent, lest ye be danmed! REPENT!

Unapologetically stolen without permission from here in this discussion. Misspellings included!

Cheap laughs. They’re called cheap because they can be gotten for very little effort. Cheap comes with a notoriously bad connotation because you think of a miserly old man sitting in the dark counting his precious pennies and clipping coupons. Why can’t it be something more positive like, oh I don’t know, economical laughs?

An economically effecient way to get more laughs out of joke, good or bad, is to introduce articles and plurals. Bonus points are earned if there’s a referential synonym in the form of a pun or social norm, but that’s a bit advanced for today’s lesson.

Let’s take something simple: Underwear. You could take the intuitive approach and simply use slang or slurs like tighty-whiteys, or skivvies, or simply BVDs. That last one technically doesn’t count anymore as Hanes and Fruit of the Loom are the big players underwear making game anymore. You could go that route, but before I divert, they’re already taking advantage of one of the rules: plurals. The rule they break though is being negative. I don’t care if you call me a hippie, but would you rather be wearing something called underwear or tighty-whiteys? Good comedy isn’t supposed to make someone feel bad, it’s supposed to make everyone laugh including the target.

So plurals enhance, but “Underwears” isn’t grammatically correct in any context, and in some cases can help, but since there is a correct equivalent we choose “underpants” instead. Instantly, “Underwear” has gotten funnier, and it’s not going to make anyone feel bad either. The next step is easy. Add an article and you get “the underpants!”

Now, I’ve gone around my elbow to get to my asshole on this one, but the formula is simple: Plurals and articles. If no equivalent plural is found, then just add an ’s’ and run with it! Even unfunny things can be made funny and if the plural changes the spelling too much, stick with the more ridiculous one. If the plural isn’t sticking, stand by the article addition.

• “I went outside to the orchard to pick the fruits.”
• “Coffee is good with the cremes.”
• “The birds are attacking me with the beaks!”

That last example shows the value of replacing the proper identifier with an improper one, namely from “their” to “the.”

I’ve just sucked all the fun out of comedy. You’re welcomes.