Applesauce

[James Smith]

--- Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
....
>  The
> expression "apple sauce" means anything that is old,
> trite, and out-of-date.
> This was the routine of the apple-sauce gag:
>
>      THATCHER:  Mr. Interlocutor, a teacher has
> twelve pupils and only eleven
> apples.
>      WEST:  Yes, Mr. Tambo, a teacher has twelve
> pupils and only eleven
> apples.
>      THATCHER:  That's right.  Now she wants to give
> each pupil an equal
> share of the apples without cutting the apples.  How
> does she do it?
>      WEST:  Let me see.  A teacher has twelve pupils
> and only eleven apples.
> SHe wants to give each pupil an equal share of the
> apples without applying a
> knife to the fruit.  How does she do it?  I must
> confess my ignorance.  How
> does she do it, Mr. Tambo?
>      THATCHER:  She made apple sauce.
>
>      Thatcher used to get a huge laugh from this
> joke.  Naturally, all the
> other rival minstrels grabbed it, used (Pg.
> 136--ed.)  it, an finally hamered
> it into an early grave by too much repetition.

Just my opinion, but if audiences gave a huge laugh to
this use of "applesauce", the word must have already
had a widely known second meaning: the sketch itself
doesn't seem very funny to me unless "applesauce"
already had a meaning of "nonesense" or "horse
feathers" or such.  But then, maybe I'm just jaded to
something that was very fresh and entertaining a
century ago.

=====
James D. SMITH                 |If history teaches anything
SLC, UT                        |it is that we will be sued
jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com     |whether we act quickly and decisively
                               |or slowly and cautiously.

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