Humor Templates 3: Tom Swifties

(In honor of April Fools’ Day, the last and longest entry in this series)

There are a number of humor templates that go in and out of style (mostly out). Most of those from my youth have disappeared. Feel free to rain down your examples, or any genres I may have missed.

According to Merriam Webster, “A Tom Swifty is a play on words taking the form of a quotation ascribed to Tom and followed by an adverb. The site offered several examples:

"The thermostat is set too high," said Tom heatedly.

Let's gather up the rope," said Tom coyly.

"Welcome to my tomb," said Tom cryptically.

"I can't find the oranges," said Tom fruitlessly.

"Don't you love sleeping outdoors," Tom said intently.

"Let's trap that sick bird," Tom said illegally.

"I lost my trousers," said Tom expansively.

"I just ran over my father," Tom said transparently.

"I just dropped the toothpaste," said Tom crestfallenly.

[From Daniel Dern: “I'll have another martini,” Tom said dryly. And a link to more templates]

This template is personal to me. By the time I was 14, I literally owned every Tom Swift book then in print (and a few from my father’s collection of 18 years earlier). Yes, the series did use too many adverbs.

And of course, in the Firesign Theater’s Adventures of Nick Danger, the announcer says, “doggedly, ruthlessly,” followed by a dog barking and Danger saying, “I wonder where Ruth is?”

Croakers
Tom Swifties with Verbs: “I spent the day sewing and gardening,” she hemmed and hawed.

Martini Jokes
Daniel Dern wonders if martini jokes are a template. This one’s for my MIT readers:

“I'll have a martinum.”
“Don't you mean martini?”
“If I wanted two, I would have said so.”

And this sexist one is for everybody:
Dorothy Parker almost surely didn’t say,
 “I wish I could drink like a lady.
Two or three, at the most.
But two, and I'm under the table
And three, I'm under the host.”

Elephant Jokes
Elephant jokes don’t deserve an entire essay, so check out the Readers Digest collection of elephant jokes.

Comments

[CLARK R SMITH]

True story. During a European tour of our chorale group, one of our number walked into a German bar and ordered a dry martini. And got three.