[Ads-l] fu lion - 1913, foo dog - 1915, foo lion - 1918

[Laurence Horn]

I get the distinction, but the terminology seems uncertain or fluid, depending on whether "shaggy dog story" is a natural kind.  From the wiki entry on "feghoot" [I didn't include the last and most relevant line last time):

===========
A story pun (also known as a poetic story joke or Feghoot) is a humorous short story or vignette ending in a pun (typically a play on a well-known phrase) where the story contains sufficient context to recognize the punning humor.  It can be considered a type of shaggy dog story.
===========

So should we consider we a Feghoot to be a SDS? Presumably, in the words of a great American statesman, we could do it but it would be wrong.

LH 

> On Feb 17, 2016, at 11:11 AM, James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 16 Feb 2016 16:24:30 Zone - 0500 Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU wrote
> 
> <begin quote>
> Any relation to the protagonist of the shaggy dog story (or stories, in 
> different incarnations) whose eventual punch line is, of course, "If the 
> foo shits, wear it"?
> <end quote>
> 
> No, no, no, that is not a "shaggy dog story".
> 
> Webster's 11th Collegiate page 1142 "...a drawn-out circumstantial story concerning an inconsequential happening tat impress the teller as humorous or interesting but the hearer as boring and pointless; also: of, relating to, or being a similar humorous story whose humor lies in the pointlessness or irrelevance of the punch line"
> 
> In a pun such as a Feghoot the intent of the buildup is to make the (often mangled) word or phrase in the punch line relevant.
> 
> According to my father, the original shaggy dog story was that a man had lost his dog and placed an advertisement for the missing pet, specifying that the animal was a "shaggy dog".  Someone took pity on the man and brought him a replacement dog, intending to pass it off as the original missing dog.  The man who placed the ad took one look at the dog and said, "Not so damn shaggy!"
> 
> I did not think it was a very funny story when I first heard it, or now.
> 
> - Jim Landau
> 
> PS: re the subject line: foo fighter?
> 
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