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"The man was either mad or both"

14

In the delightful Fry and Laurie sketch The Letter, several puns are expertly delivered by Stephen Fry, however there is one I don't understand. At 4:45 in the video, he says "The man was either mad, or both", and it seems this should be funny, but I don't get it. Where is the pun in this sentence?

2 Answers

4

I realize this question is quite old, but I disagree with an earlier answer. While Stephen Fry's delivery is brilliant comedy in itself, there's also some word-play going on here.

The term mad can mean either angry or crazy. So here he's saying the man was either [meaning of] mad, or both; i.e. either angry or crazy or both.

3

The 'funny' comes from the fact that he should have said 'The man was either mad or X or both'. You can see that he looks at the book for the 'or X' that he may have missed.


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"The man was either mad or both"

14

In the delightful Fry and Laurie sketch The Letter, several puns are expertly delivered by Stephen Fry, however there is one I don't understand. At 4:45 in the video, he says "The man was either mad, or both", and it seems this should be funny, but I don't get it. Where is the pun in this sentence?


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9

I realize this question is quite old, but I disagree with an earlier answer. While Stephen Fry's delivery is brilliant comedy in itself, there's also some word-play going on here.

The term mad can mean either angry or crazy. So here he's saying the man was either [meaning of] mad, or both; i.e. either angry or crazy or both.

edit

Yep, not only does "mad" have two senses, but so does "either". - Hot Licks Jan 28, 2017 at 23:05

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