I think the "lady" joke is to yell at a man who rudely calls your wife "lady," as in "Look, lady, we don't have any openings, okay?" So the husband means "Don't call my wife 'lady' like that." "That's no 'lady,' that's my wife."
Okay, I looked it up and found something saying that Bartlett's (though not my ancient copy) 1887 vaudeville routine by Joseph Weber and Lew Fields: "Who was that lady I saw you with last night?" "She ain't no lady; she's my wife.""
So it's still a play on different meanings of "lady"; the offended husband meant, "That wasn't some anonymous lady on the street -- it was my wife" --- the humor coming from the man's inadvertent implication that his wife isn't a lady, meaning she's not well-mannered, well-bred, modest, etc. It is NOT the man mocking his wife.
My interpretation of the “that was no lady” joke is the opposite of Pat’s. This joke hails from an era when “lady” denoted a woman of class and manners, and the husband is saying that his wife has no class. Think about it: what’s more likely, a punchline of a husband defending his wife, or a punchline insulting the missus?
The man is saying something indignantly without thinking, trying to defend his wife by saying she is a specific lady, not some general woman, but ends up insulting her. That is the joke as I've always heard it.
But when we were kids, acting like a lady meant having proper behavior. And I am guessing the joke is at least our age. So I think it is saying his wife isn’t that. Which is still lame.
Two different jokes: "That's not a lady, that's my wife" is part of dialogue in a skit, where the man's reaction, defending the classiness of his wife, could be read in a totally different way from what he meant.
"Take my wife ... please" is a standup joke, though also featuring wordplay. Rodney is telling a monologue, talking to the audience with some comment, then says " Take my wife...." -- which the audience thinks he means "Take my wife, for example" -- then stops in the middle and instead of "for example," he says "Please."
The questioner is asking who was or is the attractive and stylish woman seen with this person for whom she is clearly out of his league. Possibly implying that in this case, "lady" is an abbreviation of the euphemism "lady of the evening", a woman with whom the relationship is illicit. The joke-teller is denying the illicit relationship, inadvertently making a declaration that his wife is not a lady in the conventional sense, and possibly meaning that low-class condition is how he actually sees her. The ambiguous definition of "lady" is the engine of the joke, such as it is. It is a weak joke whose strength lies in how the joke-teller performs his persona's realization of what he has said.
No. That's too complicated. It just comes from the era when women were generally referred to as ladies, and it's just meant to show a slip of the tongue because the husband doesn't want it thought that he was out with another woman.
Re: QWERTY, I'm currently reading a mystery by the late lamented Frederic Brown, written in 1948.. The protagonist, a writer, is gazing at his typewriter keyboard and noticing that the top row,"under the figure row, read QWERTYUIOP¼" . . .
I thought to myself, "you mean there's a ¼ key that I never noticed?" I raced to my laptop -- nope. No ⅓, ⅔, ½, ¾, ⅜ or ⅛, either. How great that would be -- I wouldn't need the convoluted method I now use to insert these fractions. But now I wonder: What keys were they missing back then? (Well, yeah, the Ctrl, Alt row, and the calculator section and the computer-related keys like Print Screen, Insert, Delete, etc. But those are kinda outside the main section of the keyboard.)
The old manual I first learned on had fractions. No 1 key, but fractions. There were better layouts available even at the time Qwerty was invented - see Blickensderfer. Although even they eventually had to bow to the inevitable and adopt qwerty.
Blickensderfer was accident of birth. Qwerty was malice aforethought. Both are jumbles of letters, but consideration of frequency was put into Blickensderfer’s - it’s actually similar to Dvorak’s (who is another story). Qwerty started out alphabetical (look at the home row) but then had various other changes half-assedly applied sans much design philosophy. Personally, I’m still surprised we didn’t end up with an Etaoin shrdlu layout.
Does anybody think that when he rage-tweets at 2am, he's not sitting there with his phone watching CNN (because nobody's looking) and compulsively scarfing Scorchin' Hot Cheddar Pringles by the can?
If Trump has an actual stroke on stage, or an obvious seizure, I suspect that he would still get 40% of the popular vote. Even if he dies right there, in front of a crowd, in some spectacular fashion like spontaneous auto-decapitation. They would tell themselves that he faked it to fool the Deep State and he is preparing to emerge suddenly and violently to Take Our Country Back. Lack of public appearances is merely a sign of how crafty he is.
And that observation -- that 40% of the electorate would presume that a live tRump death onstage was a hoax -- emphasizes how bad national politics has become.
Unfortunately, I can't think of any scenario in which Trump's death would NOT be blamed on Dems (believe me, I've tried). It would have to take place in full view of thousands, but would that be enough? Struck by lightning in the middle of an outdoor speech? Nope -- Jewish space lasers, ordered by Dems. Felled in mid-rant by a stroke? Nope -- downed by a poised dart from a blowgun wielded by a Dem. Etc., etc.
Trump will enter the mythological pantheon of heroes who will return to save (insert your group here) in our hour of greatest need like King Arthur and Frederick Barbarossa.
Several centuries ago, when I was but a wee lass, I spent a summer working for an answering service, a job which involved among other things answering Henny Youngman's four (4) lines. We had to answer "Henny Youngman, King of the One Liners!", which I initially refused to do until I daintily answered "Youngman residence, may I help you?" and got yelled at by Henny.
I learned that it was almost always him calling, to tell me that he was on his way to the Friars Club. If it wasn't him it was his wife Sadie. Once however Burgess Meredith called, which was the most exciting thing that happened to me that summer.
I submitted the original comment. I do get "Take my wife--please!" But I don't get "That was no lady." They both seem to be classic lines, but "Take my wife" makes sense, while "That was no lady" doesn't. I'm not objecting to the sexism here, just trying to understand the point of the joke.
I think I understand it--at least I thought I did, until it came up here and now I'm having doubts. I believe the joke is based on divergent assumptions about the word lady. The first person is just using a default polite term for a woman, whereas the husband can't imagine that his wife could plausibly be called a "lady." This is similar to Gene's interpretation; maybe I'm just phrasing it differently.
I disagree. In that era it would have been a funny punchline for a guy to have implied his wife wasn't ladylike. Just like the "take my wife, please!" joke, it's based on the stereotype of a long-suffering husband with an unladylike, shrewish wife.
You're probably too young to remember when women were routinely referred to as ladies, not sarcastically. It survives almost nowhere now except in the announcement, "Ladies and Gentlemen," if indeed that's still used.
This in-depth discussion of whatever facsimile of humor resides in "That's no lady..." is "Much Ado About Nothing" (Copyright William Shakespeare 1599).
Aptonym: the reporter on NPR I think (I heard it on the radio) who covered the execution in Alabama with experimental nitrogen gas on Jan. 25 was named Gassett.
I was admonished, in the 90s by happenstance, to always brush my gums. This from a dental hygienist. I acknowledged that I always brushed my gums, it feels good, and she was crestfallen that I wasn't stunned by the advice. Me, ruining her big line. I felt bad.
"Your ass is grass and I'm the lawnmower" was a standard jibe aboard middle school buses in the mid-1970s. Especially in the back of the bus, where I tried never to sit but sometimes there were no other spaces.
I would be remiss in not noting that on this day 177 years ago, Yerba Buena ("good herb") became San Francisco. Needless to say, over the years since, it has continued to be known as the city of good herb. Also as a public service --- while oral hygiene and one's wife appear to be the primary topics around the Pool today --- I would remind you of the importance of nasal hygiene and that you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but picking your friend's nose (certainly without permission), is frowned upon. Unless, of course, they ask for advice on their nose job.
The phrase we really need to discuss is the ubiquitous one of the carrot and the stick. I bet hardly anyone knows where it came from and what it means.
It comes from the once perhaps prevalent custom of attaching a stick so it protruded forward horizontally from the harness on top of a donkey or similar beast of burden's head and tying a carrot to the other end of the stick by a string so that it dangled in front of the beast who would walk toward it vainly trying to reach it, thus pulling its cart behind it. A cruel method but effective? The carrot and stick worked together to offer a false reward rather than the now common assumption that the donkey was either rewarded with the carrot or beaten with the stick. I have a great picture, but I don't know how to post it here.
The Boston Globe has an intact style section, great reviews on performance, and is owned by a businessman. I have proposed we syndicate, can’t get a response, but this or a journalism school is where I’d look.
Next in the devolution of the major newspapers into DIY and life hack tip sheets, articles that attempt to combine both news and tips. Stuff like: "Build Your Own Wall ! Get Your Neighbor to Pay For It !" or "'Loves Me Some Peach Mints' Says Taylor Greene."
How about naming rights for the two branches of Congress and the cabinet departments? And of course the Supreme Court. In fact the bodies could get collective sponsors and each member could have his/her own and wear patches, lapel pins, and caps. At least then we'd know which was which.
And a whole new set of statuary for the Capitol Rotunda.
The Invitational did a naming-rights contest! It was for buildings and parts of buildings, as many churches, schools, etc., have to reward donors. One runner-up was
The Jimmy Dean Breakfast Links Senate Visitors Gallery
The race to the bottom between the Times and the Post will be decided when one of them publishes an article titled "The correct way to wipe your butt."
So now we are to be subjected to "son (daughter ?) of roo-roo" in all its excruciating forensic detail, eh wot ? Those of you watching the "That was no lady..."/"Take my wife" jokes being autopsied before your very eyes, will almost certainly want to submit other classic bits of humor you may have grown tired of, for a similar fate. Have that last laugh or chortle then consign it to the pathologists here, knowing, perhaps sadly, that it will be the last time anyone --- at least anyone here --- will think it's funny again.
If you did come up with a "You Have To Brush Your Tongue!" headline around 1991, you were decades ahead of your time in being a clickbait writer! That, with the stock photo you provided, is a perfect example of Sponsored Content which appears in groups of around 30 at the end of each modern news article page. It's gotten where I cringe every time I see the word "This" in a headline.
I think the "lady" joke is to yell at a man who rudely calls your wife "lady," as in "Look, lady, we don't have any openings, okay?" So the husband means "Don't call my wife 'lady' like that." "That's no 'lady,' that's my wife."
Okay, I looked it up and found something saying that Bartlett's (though not my ancient copy) 1887 vaudeville routine by Joseph Weber and Lew Fields: "Who was that lady I saw you with last night?" "She ain't no lady; she's my wife.""
So it's still a play on different meanings of "lady"; the offended husband meant, "That wasn't some anonymous lady on the street -- it was my wife" --- the humor coming from the man's inadvertent implication that his wife isn't a lady, meaning she's not well-mannered, well-bred, modest, etc. It is NOT the man mocking his wife.
I think you are being overly generous.
My interpretation of the “that was no lady” joke is the opposite of Pat’s. This joke hails from an era when “lady” denoted a woman of class and manners, and the husband is saying that his wife has no class. Think about it: what’s more likely, a punchline of a husband defending his wife, or a punchline insulting the missus?
That's how I always understood it.
The man is saying something indignantly without thinking, trying to defend his wife by saying she is a specific lady, not some general woman, but ends up insulting her. That is the joke as I've always heard it.
Me too.
I still hold that the man is intentionally, not inadvertently, insulting his wife.
But when we were kids, acting like a lady meant having proper behavior. And I am guessing the joke is at least our age. So I think it is saying his wife isn’t that. Which is still lame.
It's kin to "Take my wife. please."
Two different jokes: "That's not a lady, that's my wife" is part of dialogue in a skit, where the man's reaction, defending the classiness of his wife, could be read in a totally different way from what he meant.
"Take my wife ... please" is a standup joke, though also featuring wordplay. Rodney is telling a monologue, talking to the audience with some comment, then says " Take my wife...." -- which the audience thinks he means "Take my wife, for example" -- then stops in the middle and instead of "for example," he says "Please."
Henny
Yes! Sorry!
King of the One Liners
The questioner is asking who was or is the attractive and stylish woman seen with this person for whom she is clearly out of his league. Possibly implying that in this case, "lady" is an abbreviation of the euphemism "lady of the evening", a woman with whom the relationship is illicit. The joke-teller is denying the illicit relationship, inadvertently making a declaration that his wife is not a lady in the conventional sense, and possibly meaning that low-class condition is how he actually sees her. The ambiguous definition of "lady" is the engine of the joke, such as it is. It is a weak joke whose strength lies in how the joke-teller performs his persona's realization of what he has said.
No. That's too complicated. It just comes from the era when women were generally referred to as ladies, and it's just meant to show a slip of the tongue because the husband doesn't want it thought that he was out with another woman.
OP here. That is basically how I interpret the joke, but (as I said) it doesn't seem that funny, so I don't know why it's such a standard.
Neither the bed farter nor the QWERTY inventor is worse than Trump. Please try harder.
I did not say "worse." I said next worst.
If you are writing about the request from the Weekend Gene Pool, it read: "Okay, so here is the challenge: Who, historically, is worse than Trump?'
That's why I nominated Mao. My concern is that someone may look upon Mao as a exemplary.
I said worse, not Gene, and he merely copied my comment, so blame me. I meant it in humorous context.
(qwerty, anyway. I have never been so foolish as to get into a relationship with a lactose intolerant fan of limburger.)
Re: QWERTY, I'm currently reading a mystery by the late lamented Frederic Brown, written in 1948.. The protagonist, a writer, is gazing at his typewriter keyboard and noticing that the top row,"under the figure row, read QWERTYUIOP¼" . . .
I thought to myself, "you mean there's a ¼ key that I never noticed?" I raced to my laptop -- nope. No ⅓, ⅔, ½, ¾, ⅜ or ⅛, either. How great that would be -- I wouldn't need the convoluted method I now use to insert these fractions. But now I wonder: What keys were they missing back then? (Well, yeah, the Ctrl, Alt row, and the calculator section and the computer-related keys like Print Screen, Insert, Delete, etc. But those are kinda outside the main section of the keyboard.)
The old manual I first learned on had fractions. No 1 key, but fractions. There were better layouts available even at the time Qwerty was invented - see Blickensderfer. Although even they eventually had to bow to the inevitable and adopt qwerty.
Anyone named Blickensderfer has very little room to criticize odd letter combinations.
Blickensderfer was accident of birth. Qwerty was malice aforethought. Both are jumbles of letters, but consideration of frequency was put into Blickensderfer’s - it’s actually similar to Dvorak’s (who is another story). Qwerty started out alphabetical (look at the home row) but then had various other changes half-assedly applied sans much design philosophy. Personally, I’m still surprised we didn’t end up with an Etaoin shrdlu layout.
Plus, I’d bet Trump farts in bed too.
Why would tRump limit his farting to the bed?
Can there be any doubt?
Does anybody think that when he rage-tweets at 2am, he's not sitting there with his phone watching CNN (because nobody's looking) and compulsively scarfing Scorchin' Hot Cheddar Pringles by the can?
If Trump has an actual stroke on stage, or an obvious seizure, I suspect that he would still get 40% of the popular vote. Even if he dies right there, in front of a crowd, in some spectacular fashion like spontaneous auto-decapitation. They would tell themselves that he faked it to fool the Deep State and he is preparing to emerge suddenly and violently to Take Our Country Back. Lack of public appearances is merely a sign of how crafty he is.
Oh yes please, spontaneous auto-decapitation would be so excellent--
And that observation -- that 40% of the electorate would presume that a live tRump death onstage was a hoax -- emphasizes how bad national politics has become.
Unfortunately, I can't think of any scenario in which Trump's death would NOT be blamed on Dems (believe me, I've tried). It would have to take place in full view of thousands, but would that be enough? Struck by lightning in the middle of an outdoor speech? Nope -- Jewish space lasers, ordered by Dems. Felled in mid-rant by a stroke? Nope -- downed by a poised dart from a blowgun wielded by a Dem. Etc., etc.
If we were half as competent and bloodthirsty as they imagine, no one would have the guts to suggest these things in public.
Trump will enter the mythological pantheon of heroes who will return to save (insert your group here) in our hour of greatest need like King Arthur and Frederick Barbarossa.
Of course, just like JFK, jr.
What's next up for analysis, "take my wife--please"?
My grandparents lived in the same building as Henny Youngman, which was always a point of pride for them.
As it should have been!
Several centuries ago, when I was but a wee lass, I spent a summer working for an answering service, a job which involved among other things answering Henny Youngman's four (4) lines. We had to answer "Henny Youngman, King of the One Liners!", which I initially refused to do until I daintily answered "Youngman residence, may I help you?" and got yelled at by Henny.
I learned that it was almost always him calling, to tell me that he was on his way to the Friars Club. If it wasn't him it was his wife Sadie. Once however Burgess Meredith called, which was the most exciting thing that happened to me that summer.
Great story!
I love this!!
I submitted the original comment. I do get "Take my wife--please!" But I don't get "That was no lady." They both seem to be classic lines, but "Take my wife" makes sense, while "That was no lady" doesn't. I'm not objecting to the sexism here, just trying to understand the point of the joke.
I think I understand it--at least I thought I did, until it came up here and now I'm having doubts. I believe the joke is based on divergent assumptions about the word lady. The first person is just using a default polite term for a woman, whereas the husband can't imagine that his wife could plausibly be called a "lady." This is similar to Gene's interpretation; maybe I'm just phrasing it differently.
No. It's just a slip of the tongue. That's why it's funny. If the man really thought his wife wasn't ladylike, it wouldn't be funny.
I disagree. In that era it would have been a funny punchline for a guy to have implied his wife wasn't ladylike. Just like the "take my wife, please!" joke, it's based on the stereotype of a long-suffering husband with an unladylike, shrewish wife.
You're probably too young to remember when women were routinely referred to as ladies, not sarcastically. It survives almost nowhere now except in the announcement, "Ladies and Gentlemen," if indeed that's still used.
This in-depth discussion of whatever facsimile of humor resides in "That's no lady..." is "Much Ado About Nothing" (Copyright William Shakespeare 1599).
Aptonym: the reporter on NPR I think (I heard it on the radio) who covered the execution in Alabama with experimental nitrogen gas on Jan. 25 was named Gassett.
I was admonished, in the 90s by happenstance, to always brush my gums. This from a dental hygienist. I acknowledged that I always brushed my gums, it feels good, and she was crestfallen that I wasn't stunned by the advice. Me, ruining her big line. I felt bad.
"Your ass is grass and I'm the lawnmower" was a standard jibe aboard middle school buses in the mid-1970s. Especially in the back of the bus, where I tried never to sit but sometimes there were no other spaces.
Also, it reminds me of the bumper sticker common in that era, "Ass, Gas or Grass. Nobody rides for free!"
I would be remiss in not noting that on this day 177 years ago, Yerba Buena ("good herb") became San Francisco. Needless to say, over the years since, it has continued to be known as the city of good herb. Also as a public service --- while oral hygiene and one's wife appear to be the primary topics around the Pool today --- I would remind you of the importance of nasal hygiene and that you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but picking your friend's nose (certainly without permission), is frowned upon. Unless, of course, they ask for advice on their nose job.
oy vey
The phrase we really need to discuss is the ubiquitous one of the carrot and the stick. I bet hardly anyone knows where it came from and what it means.
Along with "Champing at the bit."
Well, I do, though I did not grow up in the donkey-and-wagon era.
AAAArgh. Yes, but we've lost this one; it's over. It now means what the idiot MBAs have corrupted it into.
The expression may derive from the once said to be common use of vegetables to distract patients before an injection. Or not. 😎
It comes from the once perhaps prevalent custom of attaching a stick so it protruded forward horizontally from the harness on top of a donkey or similar beast of burden's head and tying a carrot to the other end of the stick by a string so that it dangled in front of the beast who would walk toward it vainly trying to reach it, thus pulling its cart behind it. A cruel method but effective? The carrot and stick worked together to offer a false reward rather than the now common assumption that the donkey was either rewarded with the carrot or beaten with the stick. I have a great picture, but I don't know how to post it here.
The Boston Globe has an intact style section, great reviews on performance, and is owned by a businessman. I have proposed we syndicate, can’t get a response, but this or a journalism school is where I’d look.
Next in the devolution of the major newspapers into DIY and life hack tip sheets, articles that attempt to combine both news and tips. Stuff like: "Build Your Own Wall ! Get Your Neighbor to Pay For It !" or "'Loves Me Some Peach Mints' Says Taylor Greene."
How about naming rights for the two branches of Congress and the cabinet departments? And of course the Supreme Court. In fact the bodies could get collective sponsors and each member could have his/her own and wear patches, lapel pins, and caps. At least then we'd know which was which.
And a whole new set of statuary for the Capitol Rotunda.
The Invitational did a naming-rights contest! It was for buildings and parts of buildings, as many churches, schools, etc., have to reward donors. One runner-up was
The Jimmy Dean Breakfast Links Senate Visitors Gallery
The House of Representatives should be sponsored by Senokot Gummies. "Take 2 the night before a public hearing. Next day, it's Showtime!"
The race to the bottom between the Times and the Post will be decided when one of them publishes an article titled "The correct way to wipe your butt."
Close. https://wapo.st/3ugASgG
Without using one-use tp.
So now we are to be subjected to "son (daughter ?) of roo-roo" in all its excruciating forensic detail, eh wot ? Those of you watching the "That was no lady..."/"Take my wife" jokes being autopsied before your very eyes, will almost certainly want to submit other classic bits of humor you may have grown tired of, for a similar fate. Have that last laugh or chortle then consign it to the pathologists here, knowing, perhaps sadly, that it will be the last time anyone --- at least anyone here --- will think it's funny again.
So who controls the sewage called "Paid Promoted Stories" that one sees below every single WaPo story?
If you did come up with a "You Have To Brush Your Tongue!" headline around 1991, you were decades ahead of your time in being a clickbait writer! That, with the stock photo you provided, is a perfect example of Sponsored Content which appears in groups of around 30 at the end of each modern news article page. It's gotten where I cringe every time I see the word "This" in a headline.