language design

A George Carlin stand-up bit from Doin' It Again about soft language and euphemism, showing how softened words hide uncomfortable facts. It touches on topics like shell shock and aging.

Neil Cicierega's parody song 'Redesign Your Logo', played over a live backing video with corporate PowerPoint visuals. It mocks the infamous Pepsi design strategy presentation.

A sketch from the Norwegian NRK show Uti Var Hage poking fun at the Danish language and how hard it is to understand.

Finnish YouTuber Saara improvises gibberish that mimics how various languages sound to people who do not speak them. The sentences are mostly made up, and the clip went viral.

A clip from George Carlin's 1990 special 'Doin' It Again' in which he describes how American English has been sterilized with euphemisms, using examples such as shell shock becoming PTSD.

A Fry and Laurie sketch about language, full of absurd phrases and wordplay, which also plays on the distinction between langue and parole.

Finnish comedian Ismo does a stand-up routine on Conan about the many meanings of the English word 'ass'. He riffs on the confusing quirks of English as a second language.

A short clip of the Simpsons episode in which Homer designs a car with absurd requirements, used here as a lesson in project requirements and scope.

A 2006 parody made by a Microsoft team that shows how the company would redesign iPod packaging, with a box piled with feature claims, logos and clutter in contrast to Apple's clean design.

A George Carlin stand-up bit on euphemisms, tracing how language gets softened, such as shell shock becoming PTSD, until it loses its emotional force.

Finnish comedian Ismo riffs on how the English word for shit is the most complicated word in the language, with its many meanings and uses. It is a four-minute comedy bit.

A George Carlin routine on euphemisms and political correctness, tracing how shell shock became PTSD. The uploader adds context about euphemism in political language.

A two-minute clip of comedian Bill Hicks doing his routine on marketing and advertising, with explicit language. He mocks marketers and urges them to get out of the business.

A nine-minute Stewart Lee stand-up routine about political correctness and the claim that it has gone mad. It is dry, layered British comedy that takes the complaint apart.

'Skwerl' is a short film by Brian and Karl made entirely in fake English, imitating how English sounds to people who don't speak it. It was made for Kino Sydney and shown on QI.

Slavoj Zizek speaks at an architecture congress in Pamplona about how toilet design in France, England and Germany reflects national ideology. The clip is about four minutes long.

A comedy segment where Eddie Izzard travels to Friesland to try speaking Old English, claiming English originated in Holland and buying a cow to prove it.

A short George Carlin routine on how the term shell shock was softened into combat fatigue and then PTSD. He argues that euphemism hides the reality of suffering.

A two-minute comedy sketch in which a foreigner speaking fluent Japanese is repeatedly not understood by Japanese people who refuse to process it.

A roughly ten-minute scene from the movie The Pentagon Wars showing how the Bradley Fighting Vehicle's requirements ballooned through committee demands into a compromised design. It is a satirical dramatization of military procurement.

A stand-up routine by Stewart Lee on political correctness, offering a satirical defense of inclusive language.

A short 2010 parody sketch titled 'All The Cool Kids Use Ruby' about an absurd initial consultation. It is a spoof of tech-hype culture.

Neel Kolhatkar's satirical short film parodies modern education and political correctness. It shows how obsession with inclusive speech makes plain communication difficult.

A humorous 10-minute parody sequel to Erlang: The Movie, in which Erlang's creators discuss the aging language and meet a surprise helper. It plays on the Outlaw Techno Psychobitch joke for OTP.

The earliest filmed version of the Turbo Encabulator technical-jargon parody, shot in the late 1970s with narrator Bud Haggert. It deadpans a stream of meaningless engineering language.

Paul Taylor's first stand-up special, recorded in Paris in 2018, in which a British comedian living in France riffs on French culture, language and bureaucracy. It is the full 70-minute show.

A satirical Onion News Network piece announcing the 'MacBook Wheel', a laptop with no keyboard where users type by spinning and clicking a wheel. It parodies Apple product launches and minimalist design.

A five-minute clip of a George Carlin routine arguing that the education system is designed to produce compliant citizens rather than critical thinkers. It ties schooling to the interests of the people who own the country.

A Saturday Night Live sketch for the Amazon Echo Silver, a smart speaker for the elderly, in which older users misunderstand Alexa. It parodies voice assistants.

A short comedic video in which a man poses as an Apple engineer talking about the 2016 MacBook Pro. It is a critique of the USB-C-only design.

An IKEA Singapore ad parodying Apple product launches by presenting the 2015 catalogue as a revolutionary 'bookbook' device. It is a short, tongue-in-cheek spoof of Apple-style marketing.

An episode of REACT in which children try to figure out 1970s-1980s computers, including an Apple II and floppy disks. It was made to promote the AMC show Halt and Catch Fire.

A Burnistoun sketch in which a voice-recognition elevator cannot understand two Scottish men saying the number eleven. It satirizes voice interfaces that fail on accents.

The Monty Python sketch "Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook", in which a faulty phrasebook yields lines like "My hovercraft is full of eels".

A three-minute David Mitchell's Soapbox rant addressed to Americans about the phrase "could care less", arguing it means the opposite of what speakers intend. Delivered as dry British comic commentary on language usage.

The business card scene from the film American Psycho, in which executives compare increasingly refined business cards with escalating envy. It is a two-minute clip of a classic dark comedy moment.

A short comedy video of the Turbo Encabulator, a piece of technobabble nonsense describing an imaginary machine in deadpan engineering language.