Clown question

[Alice Faber]

I've been keeping an eye on this one also.

On 6/17/12 6:23 PM, Bonnie Taylor-Blake wrote:
> Two or three days ago a college basketball player I follow on Twitter
> simply tweeted "That's a clown question" and I wondered why.  Now I
> know (see far below).
>
> Even Charles Krauthammer is getting in on it, having used "That's a
> clown question, bro'" in reply to a long question asked him on TV on
> "Inside Washington" yesterday.
>
> It'll be interesting to see how far "clown question" (or the larger
> phrase) gets this summer.
>
> -- Bonnie
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
>>>From NPR's "The Two-Way" Blog
>
> http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/06/13/154941493/
>
> 'That's A Clown Question, Bro' Or The Rhetorical Comeback Rounding Twitter
> Eyder Peralta, 13 June 2012
>
> If Twitter has its way, "That's a clown question, bro." will join
> "Don't tase me, bro." in the annals of popular rhetorical comebacks.
>
> "That's a clown question, bro" comes from 19-year-old baseball phenom
> Bryce Harper. That's what he told a Canadian journalist yesterday,
> following his second three-hit game in a row.
>
> The journalist asked the Nationals' Harper if he was going to
> celebrate by drinking a beer, being that the legal drinking age in
> Canada is 19.
>
> Harper, who is Mormon, rolled his eyes and said, "I'm not going to
> answer that. That's a clown question, bro."
>
> [...]
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
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Alice Faber                                       faber at haskins.yale.edu
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org