A box of cakes

- "I ate a plate of rice."
- "I never eat the plate."

- "Shall I serve two spoons of curry?"
- "You can keep the spoons."

- "You guys would have finished the box of cakes by six!"

- "Not the box."

My wife has, over the last three years, repeatedly, been at the receiving end of such "witty repartees" from, two particular, gentlemen friends of mine. Yesterday, when I was at the receiving end, not for the first time, the monkey was on my back.

Firstly, the phrases, "plate of rice", etc., seem correct to me. I have the Third College Edition Webster's New World English Dictionary which says all these words, in addition to the obvious noun, mean 'the contents of ...... ', except for 'spoon' where 'spoonful' is the recommended usage. Even internet searches yield the same. Clearly, there doesn't seem to be any mistake.

Finally, the issue remains of such lines being passed off as humor. As a middle-school kid, being an English pundit, I'd correct Uncles' English. The laughter it would elicit from other Uncles egged me on till I reached PUC. What was cute three years before, was now crass. But it's not this that put me off. It's that,

1. After three years of falling back on highlighting linguistic lapses, which aren't even lapses, as presentation of humor the gentleman still continues to do so.
2. When I tell him the remark is trite, he says that even for this cliche I don't have a comeback. What should I tell him? "Dude, I ain't wrong, and, you ain't funny after three years."