Re: CHAT anecdotage (was: Easy and Interesting Languages -- Website)

Mark J. Reed scripsit:

> Those would be "shaggy-dog stories".
I recognize your usage, but I use "shaggy-dog story" as a name for a kind of
parajoke: a long, meandering story that eventually leads up to a deliberately
unfunny punch line.  The term comes from a SDS about a man who sees an ad
"LOST: SHAGGY DOG: REWARD".  He goes to the pound, buys the shaggiest dog
he can find, and takes it to the given address, which turns out to be a
mansion.  He presents the dog to the butler, who snaps "It wasn't *that* shaggy!"
and slams the door in his face.

Properly told, this story can be made to last for half an hour.

--
Verbogeny is one of the pleasurettes    John Cowan <jcowan@...>
of a creatific thinkerizer.             http://www.reutershealth.com
   -- Peter da Silva                    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan

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