Or, for that matter, “Which Shakespeare character killed the most chickens and ducks?”
Many hotels keep a random supply of books–but the
Nittany Lion Inn has a whole roomful. Most were probably left behind by
guests–the usual case. But some are mysterious.
Several years of scholarly journals on programming, from the early
seventies? Shelf after shelf of Readers Digest books? Tall,
multivolume picturebook series with titles like Our Fair Land or This Is History?
Did somebody come to Penn State carrying this stuff, in hugely overpacked
luggage? And then, suddenly converted to Zen Buddhism, leave them all
behind and depart as a barefoot pilgrim?
The Shakespeare jokes come from a funny collection of vintage puzzles by Gyles Brandeth, The Puzzle Mountain (1981). Some of the jokes are really very old. For example:
Because both are always drawn with a drag on.
Others reflect an older sensibility. A couple of famous naughty
limericks are here, metamorphosed to clean ones–the man whose balls were of
different sizes is, in Brandeth’s book, a girl with mismatched ears. (Or maybe the man just has drag on?)
OTOH, Brandeth includes jokes that might jar a modern PC sensibility.
The punchline for Othello: “Because he was a tawny
general of Venice.” OK, I’ve kept you waiting long enough for the
PETA-unfriendly joke about who killed the most ducks and chickens.
It was Hamlet’s uncle, because he did murder most foul.