For some reason, puns ( usually by Tim Vine ) often win the best gag contest at the Edinburgh Fringe. We at Jot 101 are at a loss to understand why this should be so. Truly witty people hardly ever use puns to get a laugh. In the following third helping of samples from a small bound collection of cuttings collected by a comedian around the year 1900 there are no puns, just witty, often sardonic, or even zany, asides. They are all the better for that.
Druggist: “ Yes, madam, I remember very well your buying a stamp.”
Lady: “ Well I put it on a very important letter and posted it. It has not been received. I want you to understand that I shall buy my stamps elsewhere if this occurs again.”
“ Excuse me, but it seems to me that I must have met you before. Are you not a brother or near relative of Major Jones ?”
“ No, I am Major Jones himself.”
“ Ah, indeed ! That explains the remarkable resemblance “.
A French lady once said to her husband, who was much given to gesticulation, “ Don’t talk so much, dear, you’ll tire your arms.”
Mr Howland: “I tell you, Maria, you’re worrying over nothing. I can stop smoking any time I want to.”
Mrs Howland: “Well, then, stop now.”
Mr Howland: “But I don’t want to now.”
Visitor: “So your brother is taking lessons on the violin. Is he making progress?”
Little girl: “ Yes’m; he’s got so now we can tell whether he is tuning or playing.”
“ How do you pronounce t-o?”
Answer: “To”
“ How do you pronounce t-o-o?”
Answer “Too”
“How do you pronounce t-w-o?”
“Two”
“And how do you pronounce the second day of the week?”
“Tuesday.”
“Well, you may call it so if you like, but I call it Monday.”
“Mamma, what is classical music?”
“Oh, don’t you know? It’s the kind that you have to like whether you like it or not.”
“ Has she given you any encouragement?”
“ Oh, yes! She says she will get all of her father’s money some day.”
Professor: “What happens to gold when it is exposed to the air?”
Student (after a long reflection): “It’s stolen.”
Mrs Slybel: “That boy grows more like his father every day.”
The Caller: “Poor dear. And have you tried everything?”
Tramp: “My pard says ye jist guv him sixpence for having one leg.”
B.Neveolent: “ Yes, I did.”
Tramp: “Gimme a shilling, won’t yer? I’ve got two.”
[R.M.Healey]
These are excellent. But the dating is slightly too early. I looked up in the Newspaper Archive this joke:
‘What selection is that the orchestra have just finished?’
‘I don’t know. Sounded to me like neuralgia expressed in music.’
and it first appears in January 1910.