One time I was reading this story about the wit of Abraham Lincoln. It seems Honest Abe (The Socialist) had been quite pleased with himself for a joke he made in front of all the members of his cabinet I believe it was. A common farmer had asked for and been granted an audience with the president. When asked the matter, The farmer said that he wanted to know how long a man's legs should be. "Long enough to reach the ground." was President Lincoln's answer.
Well what pleased Lincoln so much was the uproar of laughter that followed. He hurried home to tell Mary Todd about it. She was not as happy about it as Abe. She argued with him about the proper punch line (She said it should be "Long enough to reach his torso", which is much funnier to her) and the reason a man would travel such a great distance to ask such a ridiculous question.
In the end, this got Abe thinking. "What did the farmer really want?"
Anyway, the term "Non Sequitur" was used in the story and that's the first time I saw it.
It was written by Woody Allen.
1 comment:
Isn't providing a logical explanation of a non sequitur oxymoronic?
That reminds me of the first time I heard that word, "oxymoron". My sophomore high school English teacher was kind enough to provide some examples of oxymorons, like "jumbo shrimp" or "microsoft works". It was one of those magical moments of keen perception and depth of understanding. I finally had a word for something I knew existed all along but just couldn't put my finger on it. And then suddenly I had this word; oxymoronic thinking began to crystalize in my brain as I categorized all sorts of paradoxes in literature and in the real world.
Perhaps the biggest of them all was the day I was a passenger in my friend Todd's car on our way home from high school. Coincidentally, it was back in 1986. Anyhow, there was a major traffic jam that turned Hwy I-44 in St. Louis into a parking lot. After about a half-hour wait, we arrived at the scene of the accident: a semi trailer was laying on it's side and covering all four lanes. Traffic was diverted on to the shoulder around the mess. It was quite a scene. Caught up in the excitement, I mustered up my best Jerry Seinfeld impersonation and yelled out the window, "Are we talking Jack Knife here, or what?!"
I thought it was funny. So did my friend Todd. We laughed. We were punks.
A quarter mile later, a police car pulled us over. As I rolled down the window to talk to the officer, his fist came through and cold-cocked me in the right eye. BAM!!
It wasn't funny anymore. I almost shit my pants. As I recoiled from the shock of it all, this officer was screaming at us (me) at the top of his lungs. Every other word he used was the "F" word. He had my attention.
Then he paraded us out of the car, took our licenses and did a full car search (including trunk) to find something, anything, that he could later use to cover his ass for punching me. I could feel my eye swelling.
Another police car showed up. Then two more. They were having a conference while Todd and I talked to try and understand what had just happened to us.
Finally, the original officer approached and threw our licenses at our feet. I asked him what we were being stopped for. His reply was that we were disturbing the peace by yelling obscenities in front of young school children at the accident scene. I didn't miss the irony of his flagrant F-Bomb usage. He went on to say that he was going to let us go and that if he ever caught us doing any "fucking shit in his town again, he'd drag our goddam fucking asses to jail and throw away the key."
After I picked up my license, I noticed his name - Major Small - and a switch flicked in my brain. I was now slightly amused by the oxymoron I was in: this sworn protector of the peace, Major Small, arresting me for disturbance while a cloud of four letter words hung over us and my eye throbbed in pain. Could there be a bigger oxymoron? I was inspired. I said in reply, "Excuse me, Major Small, that may be fine for tomorrow, but what am going to tell my Dad when he asks me how I got a black eye today?"
Major Small didn't like my tone. He said, "That's it you fucking little punk, your ass is going to jail." He cuffed and stuffed me Rockwood's finest cruiser for a free trip to the city jail to be booked for distubing the peace.
And that's how your logical explanation of a non-sequitur reminded me of oxymorons and
MUNCH!! Glub-gurgle-gurgle!
What the?! Oh my God! My Dog's a freaking vamp-dog! Oh GEEZ - look at those canines! Sit Emmy! SIT DOWN!! How about a dog biscuit - AAAAH! (MUNCH!!!) SIT EMMY! SIT!!!
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