This was on a repeat of “My Word!” a few weeks ago.
What are some questions that can be answered “No W”?
The classic is “Do you spell your name with a V, Mr. Vagner?”
They gave this alternative, which got a delayed, moderate laugh: “Why couldn’t Wordsworth sell his country cottage?”
The only thing I can think of is “ordsorth”, but that doesn’t deserve any laugh. The only cottage of his I can find is Dove Cottage.
So what’s the joke?
Perhaps it’s that in the abbreviations used in property ads, “No W” would mean “No Water”?
Though why it should be Wordsworth, I can’t think.
maybe it’s a play off the fact that wordsworth has so many obvious w’s in it that it’d be absurd to have no w’s in the name.
British, I presume?
In that case “No W” could mean “No Water Closet” or in American, no indoor bathroom.
That must be it, DrFidelius, because his Dove Cottage did, indeed, have an outhouse. Thanks!
I always heard this as “9 W”. It just doesn’t seem even remotely funny to me as “No W”.
And I think “9 W” is way funnier than “No W”.
The leap, to me, is Vordsvorth. But that’s not funny. Must be British.
Not “9 W” – “Nein W”
Well if you write it “Nein W” it ceases to be a joke.
I first heard “9 W” (“Nein, W”) from Johnny Carson. But neither of those makes sense for the Wordsworth version.
Correct. It’s one of those jokes that only works if you hear it, not if you read it.
And I first heard it in one of Johnny Carson’s Carnac the Magnificent sketches, too.
And, the question to be posed is addressed to “*Herr *Wagner.”
Better macaronic teutonic one for ye.
“For Freud, what comes between fear and sex?”
“funf!”
(fear = vier = four in German, sex = zex = six in German, and funf = five, in yes you guessed it, German.)