h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, more a curiosity than a joke really...

How do you get "and" into a sentence five times consecutively, without being grammatically incorrect?

Can't be done?

Well..........

Roger, the owner of the Dog and Duck, needed a new pub sign to replace his cracked, peeling one. So, he called up Dave, the sign painter, and asked him to do a nice picture of a hunting dog with a limp, recently expired duck in its jaws, with "Dog and Duck" in nice big squirly letters forming an arc over the top. A couple of days later, Dave turns up on the door of the Dog with a freshly-painted sign under his arm. He hands it to Roger, who observes it critically. "The picture's great", he says, "but you're going to have to do the lettering again". Dave's a bit disgruntled, but he agrees to change it (and resolves to charge extra for the increased paint usage) but he wants to know what's wrong with it.
"Ah," says Roger, "you've left too big a gap between Dog and and and and and Duck."

sorry, i just dont get it!

Reminds me of a lovely sentence that occurs in one of Anthony Burgess's novels:

'She breathed (though a young lady should not eat, because of the known redolence of onions, onions) onions.'

Surely this means that the pub is called The Dog And And Duck?

aaah i think ive worked it out... hes used another 'and' instead of a comma or pause...

Dog and and and and and Duck

dog and and, and, duck..

hum, i had it all worked out a minuite ago... hum, i recon what hes done is this. eg when you say a list of things, you dont say i bought a carrot and a cucumber and a fish and.... etc. this is what the bloke in the joke has done.

or something like that anyway...

actually, thinking of it, he could just have a stutter....

that would also make sence.. although im not too sure of the gramatically correct bit...

It's "Dog and 'and' and 'and' and Duck". (The 'and' being part of the sign).

I think.

Dubba has it correct. The spaces are between the three words on the sign -- "Dog" "and" and "duck" -- and we're talking about the distance between "Dog" and "and", and "and" and "duck". I think it's grammatically correct, but I'm only a journalist, and you can't trust us on syntax questions!

hmmm seems to have lost its halarity after having to work it all out somehow. perhaps it should go under the appauling jokes section - anyone written one yet? :P

I feel offended...and yet somehow validated by this conversation. Thank you for your time.

Here's another, that uses the same word eleven times consecutively. It describes two pieces of written work being marked by an English teacher:

David, where John had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had the approval of the teacher.

Can anyone top that?