Thursday, January 14, 2010

Humour Me

This was one of my favourite jokes when I was about 8 (and actually remains one of my favourite jokes):

What's green, hairy and very dangerous?

A horde of stampeding gooseberries.

Why, exactly, is this funny? I wish I knew. Is it the anthropomorphisation (I think I may have made that word up) of the fruit? Is it the hairiness? The danger? Is it the visual of a horde of gooseberries stampeding down a cliff? Or is it the fact that gooseberries are by their very nature peaceable fruits, so pretending they are otherwise is hilarious? Makes me smile every time though...

ON EDIT: Some googling showed up The Dangerous Brothers and the origin of the gooseberry jokes. You learn something new every day.

2 comments:

The Masked Pedant said...

Surely that should be a stampeding horde of gooseberries? The horde is always a horde, but they're not always stampeding. Presumably they stop occasionally for a drink or something.

Liz said...

Well, I have it on good authority that these are specific sub-species of gooseberry. They stampede at all times, preferring to get their nutrition from photosynthesis.