fan-hitting (classified)

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:36 PM -0400 10/14/08, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>There's also "When the foo (or is it Foo?) shits, wear it" -- but I
>can't remember the story.
>
>Joel

It involves the fearsome Foo bird.  The rest is, I believe, reconstructible.
>
>At 10/14/2008 12:49 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>>the Feghoot stories date from 1956-73, so it's possible Brunvand knew
>>of the term "feghoot" for the subtype of shaggy dog stories that end
>>in atrocious punning, spoonerisms, etc. (check the wikpedia entries
>>for "feghoot" and "shaggy dog story").  but someone should be able to
>>check his 1963 paper.
>>
>>"feghoot" is not yet in the OED.  should it be?  ("shaggy dog story"
>>made it, though.)
>>
>>some of my favorite feghoots: the doubly spoonerizing "boyfoot bear
>>with teak(s) of Chan"; the punning "I left my harp in Sam Clam's
>>Disco"; and the magnificent punning "transporting gulls across staid
>>lions for immortal porposes" (this is the variant i know, and it looks
>>like the most frequent one, but you can also find "sedate", "state",
>>"estate", and "stately", which i judge to be inferior to "staid".

...and, as mentioned, there's the "transporting a *mynah* across
state lions for immortal porpoises" variant of the Mann Act one.  I
had forgotten it, but that boy-foot bear with teaks of Chan is indeed
one of the classics.  The Sam Clam's disco is a new one on me, but
then we were exchanging these in high school c. 1960, when who knew
from discos?

LH




>>(the first of these i've known since i was a teenager.  the other two
>>i got from my daughter elizabeth when *she* was a teenager.)
>>
>>collections of puns often include feghoots -- puns that require a
>>story to set them up.  the collection of imperfect puns that elizabeth
>>zwicky and i made some years ago included a number of these (our
>>favorite was "with fronds like these, who needs anemonies").
>>discussion in our article on the topic:
>>   http://www.stanford.edu/~zwicky/imperfect-puns.pdf
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org