Word of the Day

Nov 23, 2010 07:42

As I learned listening to NPR this weekend. "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me."

The word is Witzelsucht

Leave a comment

Comments 3

alton_lust November 23 2010, 07:43:16 UTC
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Witzelsucht, from the German 'witzeln', meaning to joke or wisecrack, and 'sucht' meaning addiction or yearning, is a set of rare neurological symptoms characterized by the patient's uncontrollable tendency to make puns, tell inappropriate jokes and pointless or irrelevant stories at inconvenient moments. The patient nevertheless finds these utterances intensely amusing. It is associated with small lesions of the orbitofrontal cortex.[1]

Reply


from the show & me alton_lust November 23 2010, 07:54:06 UTC
To which one commentator immediately replied,
"Leave it to the Germans to decide humor is a disease."

1st commentator: "Oh my god my Dad has that! Not all the time, but whenever we go into restaurants he just can't stop himself. He ask for steak tar-tar medium well. He asks how fresh the De Jour is."
2nd: "It's not just your Dad, it's EVERYONE'S Dad!"

Paula Poundstone gasped: "Oh my god I hope I never get that!" (and I swear I heard a little pause just long enough for everyone to bite their tongues) "It would ruin my career! Oh but wait, then every time one of my jokes bombed I could say Please Give!"

Myself, I'm wondering you know how diseases are often named after the first person diagnosed with it? Is there some poor schlep out there named Witzelsucht? Is he really /that bad/ at telling jokes that he's gained immortality? And it's not complimentary like "Way to go Einstein!" This is "Ohhhh. You've got Witzelsucht disease."

<.< >.> I'm putting in for disability...

Reply

Re: from the show & me alton_lust November 26 2010, 10:26:27 UTC
"Poor Fritz. He's such a witzelsucht."

...or a thought that just occurred to me, Charlton Heston growling out, "Keep yer paws off her, you damn dirty witzelsuchts!"

Reply


Leave a comment

Up