Entry 2433, on 2026-03-09 at 12:11:39 (Rating 1, Comments)
I just noticed that I have written almost 2500 blog posts and I have not done a humorous one recently, especially about the worst form of humour ever: feghoots! It's hard to believe, but it appears to be true. Anyway, what is a feghoot, I hear some of you ask. Well, it's an amusing and rambling story which ends in a lame pun. It generally elicits a groan rather than a laugh. You've been warned! Anyway, here are some of my favourite feghoots and a brief explanation of each...
Feghoot 1: Some friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise the funds.
Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, the rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. He asked his mother to go and ask the friars to get out of business. They ignored her, too.
So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town, to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close shop. Terrified, the friars did so, thereby proving that...
Only Hugh can prevent florist friars.
Comment: The catchphrase "only you can prevent forest fires" comes from a US Forest Service campaign starting in 1947. It has become very well known, so I hope you know about it or the "joke" is even more lame than usual!
Feghoot 2: Back during the stone ages our ancestors mostly lived in grass huts supported with wooden rafters. The highest technological achievement was stone cutting and most tribes would have their best stone cutters craft elaborate thrones for their tribal chieftains. These thrones would be a source of pride among the tribe and stealing another tribe's throne was a way to demoralize a rival and a way to show superiority without resorting to open warfare.
One such tribe wanted to honor its chieftain and so a group of young warriors crept into their main rival's camp and stole their throne. Wanting to surprise their chieftain the warriors hid the throne up in the rafters of their grass hut. Unfortunately no sooner had the chieftain walked in then the rafter broke and the chieftain was killed by the falling throne. The moral is, of course...
People in grass houses shouldn't stow thrones.
Comment: Starting to see how this works now? The pun sounds very much like the old proverb "people in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones". There is even a Spoonerism here as well, but I will not discuss those on this post.
Feghoot 3: The big chess tournament was taking place at the Plaza in New York. After the first day's competition, many of the winners were sitting around in the foyer of the hotel talking about their matches and bragging about their wonderful play. After a few drinks they started getting louder and louder until finally, the desk clerk couldn't take any more and kicked them out.
The next morning the manager called the clerk into his office and told him there had been many complaints about his being so rude to the hotel guests: instead of kicking them out, he should have just asked them to be less noisy. The clerk responded...
I'm sorry, but if there's one thing I can't stand, it's chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.
Comment: Apparently, chestnuts roasting in an open fire are a great thing, although I've never tried them that way. Hopefully anyone trying to make sense of this joke will recognise the phrase, though.
Feghoot 4: Mahatma Gandhi walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him...
A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
Comment: The last sentence resembles the word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" when spoken quickly enough, and it is actually a real English word which was made famous in the Disney song from the movie "Mary Poppins". This is one of my favourite feghoots, and not just because it is the shortest! The word actually pre-dates the movie and its meaning is explained like this: it is a compound word made up of: super- (above), -cali- (beauty), -fragilistic- (delicate), -expiali- (to atone), and -docious (educable), with all of these parts combined meaning "atoning for being educable through delicate beauty".
So now you know. Never say you din't learn something reading my blog!
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