Boy: Hey, cobbler, my stupid older brother says you make shoe leather out of cows, heh heh, I told him he’s crazy.
Cobbler: Hide.
Boy: Aww, I can deal with him.
Cobbler: No, hide! Hide, the cow’s outside!
Boy: So? Even if it’s true, I’m not the one turning them into shoes!
Originally Posted by NutMagnet
It’s actually doubly ambiguous. Is that the only modification or another thing they’ve performed?
It’s either :
This film has been formatted to fit your screen.
or
This film has been modified and it has been formatted to fit your screen.
That’s the one I got. 
A term for a copy made without closing the “lid” of the copier. The entire sheet of copied paper comes out black. It wastes alot of toner and also deposits excess toner on various internal copier parts, which can get baked on and be a bitch to clean.
Or so I’m told.
I would like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God.
Said once after one of my kids had done something ‘helpful’.
I don’t deserve you, honey.
(On the up side, even though young, he got the joke. It’s become a family tradition.)
Similarly:
Guy sees a sign on a building, saying: “CASEY’S TOOL WORKS”. His reply: “So does mine, but I don’t go around putting up signs about it.”
Oh, I almost forgot:
[Red Skelton]
What’s for dinner… Mom?
What’s that in the road… a head?
[/Red Skelton]
You will all be pleased to know that Howard Goodall needs no Viagra.
Looks like someone’s working it in that picture.
Who’s on first.
At Souplantation, a restaurant where you pay one price, and get all-you-can-eat from the buffet:
Please consume all food on the premises.
At the entrance to a building site locally: Hard Hats Must Be Worn
What’s wrong with brand new ones?
Man calls police dispatcher and says “A man’s been shot and has been bleeding badly. I think he’s dead.”
Dispatcher: “Well can you make sure he’s dead before we send someone?”
Guy: “Hold on.” Lays phone down.
Dispatcher hears a gunshot over the phone.
Guy picks up phone and says, “Yes, he’s dead.”
A sign seen at my university, with no punctuation:
No smoking food or drink in this room.
You reminded me of a poem I once critiqued. In the verse, the writer mentioned “the men in the truck wearing hard hats”, and I felt duty-bound to point out that vehicles seldom don headgear.
When I was about ten years old, I was reading a newspaper article about a college girl who had been selected to pose for Playboy. One sentence read: “She doesn’t miss her classes at State University.” I thought: “Great! Even though she’s busy traveling and signing autographs, she manages to work her promotional appearances around her studies.” Only later did the article make it clear that the Playmate had never looked back wistfully on her academic life after she had dropped out of college.
More intentionally humorous ones:
A writer receives an unsolicited manuscript from an amateur and sends a note in reply that says, “Thank you for sending me your book. I’ll waste no time in reading it.”
There’s whole series of ambiguous statements supposedly for people writing job references for people they want to get rid of. For instance, “In my opinion, you will be very lucky to get Commasense to work for you.”
[back from Googling] Here are some more.
And one of my favorites: an exchange from the BBC’s Jeeves and Wooster series (which never appeared in any of Wodehouse’s books):
Bertie (reading a book): Jeeves, I’m trying to improve myself.
Jeeves: Such a thing seems hardly possible, sir!
Of course subtleties in punctuation can lead to ambiguities. This one is now rather famous but I like it.
Dear John,
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy - will you let me be yours?
Gloria.
Dear John,
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Gloria.
Years ago my friend and I were really bored so we decided to read through his little sister’s “Little Critter” novelization, just for laughs. In this junior novelization, Little Critter has grown up into a hip pre-teen and is now referred to as “LC.” At one point, he’s playing basketball, and a friend compliments him on his shots. The next sentence…
LC felt good about shooting himself.
had us in hysterics. Somehow, that’s how we immedietely interpreted it.
“I’m not allowed in that store anymore…I still don’t understand—the sign said ‘Throw Pillows’!”
When I lived in Joliet, there was a steakhouse which advertised
EXCELLENT DINING
DANCING COCKTAILS
In the book The Last Picture Show, by Larry McMurtry, there was a line describing Lois Farrow (Ellen Burstyn in the movie, mother to Jacy (Cybill Shepherd)) that wasn’t entirely clear to me. “She was the only woman in town who drank and made no bones about it.” Now, I’m fairly certain that what he meant was, there were other women who drank secretly, while she was the only one who drank openly. But since there were several references to church-lady types who preached the evils of alcohol, but no references to other women with hidden bottles, it could possibly mean that she was the only woman who drank liquor at all, in addition to being open about it. (Or maybe some of the temperance women thought sherry “didn’t count”; who knows.)
On further reflection, the absence of a comma probably indicates the former interpretation. Still, it could have been more clear.