Turkey hunting

Question

Could someone please help me understand this joke
http://www.thehunterslife.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-2245 I suspect, it's based on an idiomatic meaning of turkey hunting, but I'm not quite sure. Thanks in advance!

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[nq:1]Could someone please help me understand this joke http://www.thehunterslife.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-2245 I suspect, it's based on an idiomatic meaning of turkey hunting, but I'm not quite sure. Thanks in advance![/nq]
The joke is not so much about turkey hunting as about a 118-year-old man getting someone pregnant and having to marry her.

Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

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[nq:1]Could someone please help me understand this joke http://www.thehunterslife.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-2245 I suspect, it's based on an idiomatic meaning of turkey hunting, but I'm not quite sure. Thanks in advance![/nq]
The turkey hunting really isn't necessary to the joke. It's used just show the men are active. The joke would be the same if you'd substitute plowing the fields for turkey hunting.
The "joke" is that a 118 man got a woman pregnant and has to marry her.
When you analyze a joke, it loses the humor. Few jokes can stand up to logical analysis. If you read it and don't think about it, you might laugh.
Many jokes become funnier because the teller goes into a lot of unnecessary detail in the telling. Some call this type of joke "a shaggy dog story".
Revise the joke to:
An 80 year old man went to the doctor for a check-up and the doctor was amazed at what good shape the guy was in. The doctor asked "How old was your dad when he died?"

The old timer said, "He's still alive and 100 yrs old."

The doctor asked "How old was your grandfather when he died?"

The old timer said, "He's still alive and 118 yrs old. He got married this morning."
The Doctor said in amazement, "Got married!! Why
would a 118-year-old guy want to get married?"
The old timer said, "He had to."
Same joke, same punch line, but not funny because there's no story.

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[nq:1]Same joke, same punch line, but not funny because there's no story.[/nq]
Doch.
Adrian

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[nq:2]Could someone please help me understand this joke http://www.thehunterslife.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-2245 I ... turkey hunting, but I'm not quite sure. Thanks in advance![/nq]
Perhaps there's a joke in the fact that turkey hunting's not exactly the elixir of life. I know that American wild turkeys aren't the same as the turkeys we eat over here at Christmas - than which a more docile species of fowl is hardly possible - but I can't imagine that "hunting" turkeys is very energetic. To hunt something properly it must surely be elusive, and require tracking, possibly for several days, under conditions of extreme hardship - Bengal tigers spring to mind.I dislike hunting, though not passionately enough to start calling for bans. And I do have respect for individuals, like Captain Ahab, who at least go to some trouble to bag their prey. But I look down my nose at the those slackers among the hunting fraternity who pursue to their death such harmless and affectioante creatures as ducks, pheasants, and, for all I know, turkeys. I mean, what less ferocious creature than a duck could you possibly shoot? OK, a pheasant.

Pheasants, for pity's sake. You might as well nail stuffed red parrots to branches, for all the difficulty pheasants pose to the marksman. I accidentally tropd on one once in a field, that's how dozy pheasants are; it just squawked and fluttered heavily into a copse. I apologised; but, I mean, what other bird could you step on by mistake? Turkey hunting: bah!

Peasemarch.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I dislike hunting, though not passionately enough to start calling for bans. And I do have respect for individuals, like ... sake. You might as well nail stuffed red parrots to branches, for all the difficulty pheasants pose to the marksman.[/nq]
Like the sublime Brigadier Gerard, you seem to be unaware that it is considered poor form to shoot a roosting pheasant. The idea is to shoot them on the wing. (Not very difficult either, I'm told. Woodcock are the thing, apparently.)Behind the house was a wood in which pheasants were reared, and it was Lord Rufton's joy to kill these birds, which was done by sending in men to drive them out while he and his friends stood outside and shot them as they passed. For my part, I was more crafty, for I studied the habits of the bird, and stealing out in the evening I was able to kill a number of them as they roosted in the trees.

Hardly a single shot was wasted, but the keeper was attracted by the sound of the firing, and he implored me in his rough English fashion to spare those that were left. That night I was able to place twelve birds as a surprise upon Lord Rufton's supper table, and he laughed until he cried, so overjoyed was he to see them.
The Brigadier in England, Conan Doyle
(Brigadier Gerard excelled at several other English pastimes. When out hunting, he would gallop ahead of the 'herd of trained dogs' and kill the fox with his sword before anyone else could catch up. At cricket - 'a game for soldiers, for each tries to strike the other with the ball, and it is but a small stick with which you may ward it off' - none could equal the speed and accuracy with which he hurled the ball at an opponent's midriff. And the astonishing Frenchman was able to show that biting was the mark of the successful pugilist.)
[nq:1]I accidentally tropd on one once in a field, that's how dozy pheasants are; it just squawked and fluttered heavily into a copse. I apologised; but, I mean, what other bird could you step on by mistake? Turkey hunting: bah![/nq]
I once came within a whisker of ******** on a hare.

AUE: Whence the 'stock' in 'stock-still'?

Mickwick
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[nq:1]AUE: Whence the 'stock' in 'stock-still'?[/nq]
Village stocks?
Matti

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[nq:1]AUE: Whence the 'stock' in 'stock-still'?[/nq]
Webster's 1913 says its from a German word with the same spelling and meaning, and wordreference.com agrees there is such a word. But which meaning of the German word "Stock" it is, I don't know.

Best Donna Richoux

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I once came within a whisker of ******** on a hare.[/nq]
If you had met in only slightly different circumstances, puss might have made a very pleasant change from the customary goose's neck.
[nq:1]AUE: Whence the 'stock' in 'stock-still'?[/nq]
Means a treestump or log, doesn't it? Am I again falling into the trap of unintentionally putting words into the Bard's mouth when I suggest he has something like "You stocks! You stones! You worse than senseless things!" in Corihol-****?
Mike.

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[nq:2]AUE: Whence the 'stock' in 'stock-still'?[/nq]
[nq:1]Webster's 1913 says its from a German word with the same spelling and meaning, and wordreference.com agrees there is such a word. But which meaning of the German word "Stock" it is, I don't know.[/nq]
OED thinks from OHG & MHG 'stoc' = stick, tree trunk, modern German Stock = stick.
'stock' is given as an English word for a tree trunk or a log.
John Dean
Oxford

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Webster's 1913 says its from a German word with the ... of the German word "Stock" it is, I don't know.[/nq]
[nq:1]OED thinks from OHG & MHG 'stoc' = stick, tree trunk, modern German Stock = stick. 'stock' is given as an English word for a tree trunk or a log.[/nq]
And now that I think of it, Webster's 1913 didn't say it was from the German word, it said "cf". That's quite different, sorry.

The Webster's 1828 wasn't working earlier, but now it is. It has

STOCK-STILL, a. (stock and still.) Still as a fixed post; perfectly still.
It also has 20 definitions for "stock," and the third is:
3. A post; something fixed, solid and senseless.

Best Donna Richoux

Turkey hunting

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