“Your a poet and don’t know it cause your feet are longfellows.” or whatever variation of that I have heard. I don’t get it. Someone help.
You’re a poet and don’t know it cause your feet show it. They’re longfellows.
A play on words, especially to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Slowly read this version from the late 20’s.
You’re a poet
and you don’t know it
but your feet show it
They’re long fellows.
The last line is play on words called a PUN------a very weak one but a pun
nevertheless.
EZ
And yet another English teacher is turning over in her grave. 
It’s a very old, very fatigued joke that sometimes gets dusted off when somebody makes an unintentional rhyme. It is funny the first time, to someone who hasn’t heard it. Nearly everybody has heard it, so it isn’t funny very often. It’s a threadbare joke, like “Why did the chicken…” or “Where was Moses, when…” The traditional glow of it brings a campfire-like sense of, ah, lore.
Nah, forget it. It’s a nine-year-old’s joke, like “rubber balls and liquor.”
Er… where was Moses when?
…the lights went out?
[spoiler]In the dark!
(Now where was Noah when the lights went out?)[/spoiler]
I still don’t get it. Will someone explain the joke to the poor idiot?
He’s a poet and doesn’t know it – said when someone (presumably inadvertently) makes a comment that rhymes. This can be enough in itself, as one rhyme has been “answered” by another. Nevertheless, it’s hard to resist the third line in the OH-IT rhyme scheme:
But his feet show it – of course now we have to wrap it up. Why/how do his feet show it?:
Because they’re long fellows – we have departed from rhyming, which lends a surprise/punchline effet. We have also cleverly tied a description of his feet (long fellows) with a famous American poet (Longfellow) so as to show how one’s feet could indicate a bent towards poetic ability. Obviously this only works in the realm of lame jokes.
It’s not so much funny as clever, taking a quick rhyme, expanding it, then unexpectedly throwing in a twist that actually reinforces the beginning concept.
Ah, thank you Gary T I totally missed the Longfellows=famous American poet part.
Was he
In the ark?
I’ve honestly never heard that one.
If I remember right, Mark Twain had Huckleberry Finn tell the “Where was Moses…” joke to Jim. It was probably an old joke then. Jim didn’t laugh.
And they stink like the Dickens.
Sorry, I just couldn’t leave it out there unfinished. I tried to, I really did. I went back to GQ, but I had to click this thread again and finish the joke. I was able to quit alcohols, drugs and cigarettes, but I just couldn’t leave it hanging. I am so ashamed of myself.
God, this was a bad joke in elementary school.
Except…Dickens wasn’t a poet, he was a novelist.
But why even the feet part? Is “fellows” a term for “feet” that I’ve never heard in my life? Or is there a pun on “feet”, also meaning like the little bits meter is broken up into (iambs, trochees, etc.)?
No, AwSnappity, it’s not that complex, no hidden puns. Just a bit of unkillable doggerel that was old when our grandfathers heard it.
Well, that’s why he stunk a poet.
His feet are Longfellow’s, but he has Harriet Beecher’s toe.
Well, in common parlance, we can see a person facetiously address part of his body. For example, a man might look down at his feet and say aloud, “How are you fellows doings?”, because it seemed like a funny thing to do at the time.