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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5Why people downvote without bringing some reasons? I'm so mad about this behavior. Isn't it a little non-civil and rude?– Saeed NeamatiJul 25, 2011 at 11:44
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9My 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 ѪJul 25, 2011 at 11:49
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@Saeed Neamati: My apologies. I did downvote for the reason given by z7sg. I normally do say why I'm downvoting - for some reason I mistakenly assumed you did in fact recognise the wordplay, and simply wanted an excuse to post a 'joke'.– FumbleFingersJul 25, 2011 at 16:38
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1@Saeed: do note that if you hover over the downvote button, the alt text says "this question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful". That's not one, but three potential (and valid) reasons for downvoting.– RegDwigнtJul 27, 2011 at 9:56
1 Answer
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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1Yeah @Stan, you're right. I wasn't familiar with "poetry in motion". Thanks. Jul 25, 2011 at 11:12
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7+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. Jul 25, 2011 at 17:21
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I knew a popular jazz song called "poultry in motion"... which further confused the meaning of this, as that was the only phrase with which I was familiar Dec 9, 2016 at 16:14