What The Fluff Wednesday: Why English Teachers are Safe from Vampires

Welcome to What The Fluff Wednesday and today I’m going to explain this joke because it’s funny to me, and I’m an English teacher so ruining (destroying) jokes is what I do.

A Glossary of Words

There are some complicated words here making this joke difficult for some people to understand so let’s take a look at what each word means:

• vampires - mythical (not real) human-like people who drink blood to stay alive.

• cursing - swearing, or saying bad words like f&@#!

• foiled - someone has stopped my plan.

• pedantry - being extremely picky and needing things to be exactly a certain way.

• ruin - to break, destroy, make something useless or ugly.

• glossary - a list of words with descriptions of their meanings.

Folk Lore About Vampires

Vampires are usually described in stories as needing to be invited into a home or building before they can come in. It’s a very strange idea, but its in almost every vampire story.

Ruin the Joke for Me!

So, this is funny because the Vampire can’t enter the home without the English teacher inviting them inside. But, the English teacher is a pedant, a picky perfectionist, and they don’t like that the vampire is saying, “Can I come in?” and not “May I come in?” which is much more polite. ‘Can’ just means “it is possible”. So the picky English teacher asks a stupid question to make the vampire realise it has made a mistake, and doesn’t invite the vampire inside.

There - now it’s not funny! You are welcome :)