Home » Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

A Way with Words, a radio show and podcast about language and linguistics.

Discussion Forum (Archived)

Please consider registering
Guest
Forum Scope


Match



Forum Options



Min search length: 3 characters / Max search length: 84 characters
The forums are currently locked and only available for read only access
sp_TopicIcon
What does this mean?
Ace Escalante
1
2008/03/09 - 10:28am

What is the meaning and origin of " You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead.

Martha Barnette
San Diego, CA
820 Posts
(Offline)
2
2008/03/09 - 10:54am

Hi, Ace -- That looks like a pretty bad pun in English! 🙂

The usual expression is "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." The joke is that the word "led" is the past tense of the verb "to lead," and the noun "lead" (meaning the gray stuff inside a pencil) is pronounced like "led." Does that make sense?

I don't know the origin of this, but thanks for the chuckle!

Guest
3
2008/03/09 - 7:01pm

It's a line delivered by Stan Laurel in the 1930 short film "Brats." (At least, assuming the IMDb entry is accurate.)

Guest
4
2008/03/21 - 3:44pm

You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead.

This reminds me of another (IMNSHO funnier) snowclone:

Dorothy Parker was asked to use the word “horticulture” in a sentence. Her response: “You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think.” (italics mine)

Guest
5
2008/03/24 - 11:32am

This reminds me of the sentence we learned studying natural language parsing:

Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.

Guest
6
2008/03/24 - 2:48pm

greyaenigma said:
Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.

That's one of my all-time faves!

Emmett Redd
7
2008/04/08 - 10:26am

This seems like the nearest to a thread of puns.

Q: What is the difference between a rich girl and a poor girl?

A: A rich girl has a canopy over her bed and an poor girl has a can o' pee under hers.

Obviously, this riddle has less revelence today than when a distinction between rich and poor was where the rich had an indoor toilet and the poor had an outhouse.

More puns?

Emmett Redd

Guest
8
2008/04/08 - 2:57pm

This isn't really in the pun category but the preceding parallelisms make me think of the following spoonerisms:
• Excuse me, usher. Can you sew me a new sheet?
• Let us propose a toast to our queer old Dean!
Yamn Dankees!¹
¹This was one that I had coined in need for the name of a band that never seemed to materialize.

Emmett Redd
9
2008/04/08 - 6:47pm

Another spoonerism: bass ackwards.

Emmett

Guest
10
2008/04/09 - 7:17pm

I like that because you can use it without sounding vulgar (to someone).

Forum Timezone: UTC -7
Show Stats
Administrators:
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Moderators:
Grant Barrett
Top Posters:
Newest Members:
A Conversation with Dr Astein Osei
Forum Stats:
Groups: 1
Forums: 1
Topics: 3647
Posts: 18912

 

Member Stats:
Guest Posters: 618
Members: 1268
Moderators: 1
Admins: 2
Most Users Ever Online: 1147
Currently Online:
Guest(s) 71
Currently Browsing this Page:
1 Guest(s)

Recent posts