Has anyone ever called up the first entry of a longish thread (say, five posts or more) and then called up the most recent one, just to see if there is ANY CORRELATION AT ALL?! Has anyone ever found one? If so, what was the biggest gap, in post numbers, between them? Just wondered.

Probably cranberries.

Cranberries? Mmmm. Thanksgiving. Best meal of the year. Can't wait!

How about the game thread? I think that's still OT.

What's OT? On topic? Off topic? Other Tyrannicals? Only Two?

The 'barman said', the 'treehouse 'thread, and the 'Fforde word and letter game' all appear to be maintaining coherence despite our best efforts.

'Vague topic' I'm not so sure.

Anyway, who wrote 'the desire for consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds'?

I've got to hand it to you people - you did it in less than three.

We went into overtime?

What were we playing?

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Well, J-S, you only have yourself to blame! Why did you make that first post on-topic?

Is this reportable.

Ohhhh! Shiny things!

I thought the topic was going to be about something interesting like handy hints on what to do about frayed cuffs, so - for me - the first post wasn't on-topic in the first place.

I used to get frayed cuffs as a kid, I guess it was because I chewed them. Tip just cut all sleeves off and they'll never fray.

'If you want to destroy my sweater, hold this thread as I walk a-waaaay...'

Well, consider the lily, you could say that it is off-topic. Personally I think OT should stand for on-topic.

I think about the best I have seen for a while was someone asking for help. Which was mangled and only six posts in did an answer appear, and that only as a pun.

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'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

"...only as a pun", Martin? ... what do you mean, "only"?

Some of the best advice in history has come in the form of puns. The oracle (was it Delphi? can't recall) advised the Athenians to place their "trust in the walls of wood" as the Persians advanced. The sad fools who defended the wooden palisade on the Acropolis were wiped out while Themistocles evacuated most of the population in ships (walls of wood, get it?) and then proceeded to decimate the Persian fleet at Salamis, effectively winning the war (481- 478 BC).

In literature, of course, was the witch's advice to the Scottish chap about Burnham wood coming to Dunsinane (if only he'd possessed a sense of humour!), or Chaucer's tale where the 'olde man' tells the three 'riotoures' that they could find the fellow, 'deeth', whom they sought - under yon tree; which indeed, they shortly did.

I do not denigrate the noble pun, merely that the advice could have been provided in a better form than as a pun. Which was quite obscure....

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Once upun a time threads was the cool word for clothes.

<old memory time again>

I once discussed the analysis of puns with the professor of Philosophy at Adelaide Uni and we decided that something else wopuld be easier to analyse. How do you define what makes something funny, and how do you then quantify it? And what are the limits of funny.

Puns seemed a safe place of attack only to be revealed as being some of the most vicious, nastiest use of words in existence.

So I did the death penalty as it was easier.

And, I think, less painful to those that disapprove. At least, that is judging from the faces of those around me....

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

It would be interesting to speculate where a play on words moves from being a pun and becomes something else (ie, something "better").
A very simple play on words - 'ducks are not all they're quacked up to be' - is groaned at because it is so obvious (and probably cliched). Is a pun 'improved' by complexity, novelty, something else? I think there may indeed be a thesis in that. I have a book at home called "Upon the Pun" which I'll dig out this afternoon.

I came across a book about the size of The Count of Monte Christo which was about the use of puns in English and Frenc and bi-lingual puns. Couldn't find anything to laugh about anywhere in it.

It was as though the auditors had got hold of the subject and reduced it to letters, not context, in the search for who knows what.

At Callahan's Crosstime Saloon they have punning contests. The winner is the one who gets the most groans (not laughs).