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up vote 18 down vote favorite

I saw this sentence as an example of pun or wordplay. But I couldn't find out where the wordplay is. Any idea?

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Why people downvote without bringing some reasons? I'm so mad about this behavior. Isn't it a little non-civil and rude? – Saeed Neamati Jul 25 '11 at 11:44
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My guess is that they have downvoted because they don't think that the 'explain this joke' sort of requests are interesting or likely to be useful to other users. – z7sg Ѫ Jul 25 '11 at 11:49
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@Jasper. I have no problem with downvoting. :) But when you don't understand the reason, it's like somebody slap you in the face and leave without mentioning why. Don't you feel that? – Saeed Neamati Jul 25 '11 at 12:05
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@z7sg. Thanks for your reasoning which was also logical. I don't have problems with not mentioning 'explain this joke' sort of questions here. But how am I supposed to know that? Somebody should downvote, and say 'Hey, could you please keep this crap for yourself'. Then I won't do it anymore. :) – Saeed Neamati Jul 25 '11 at 12:06
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@Saeed Yes, I think it can be quite unfair to downvote without a comment. Then we can only speculate on the reason. New users can help avoid some downvotes/closures by reading the faq and taking care to make sure their question has not already been asked. But sometimes these things do happen despite that and I try not to get offended when it happens to me. – z7sg Ѫ Jul 25 '11 at 12:32
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1 Answer

up vote 44 down vote accepted

Graceful movement is often described as "poetry in motion"; the pun is in the similarity in sound between poetry and poultry. If one isn't familiar with the common phrase, then the humour disappears.

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Yeah @Stan, you're right. I wasn't familiar with "poetry in motion". Thanks. – Saeed Neamati Jul 25 '11 at 11:12
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+1. Not having a decent grasp of the idioms of any language is likely to make much of the humor in that language a lot less funny. – Adam Robinson Jul 25 '11 at 17:21

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