Showing posts with label Old Chestnut. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Old Chestnut. Show all posts

Jan 6, 2017

Wordology, Old Chestnut

An 'old chestnut' is another way of saying a joke is old or stale. The origin appears to be eating roasted chestnuts at the fireside while listening to old stories.

The Broken Sword, was a melodrama by William Dimond (1816) in which one of the characters, Captain Xavier, is forever telling the same jokes, over and over, with slight variations. As he repeats a certain joke involving a cork tree, he is corrected. The man says, "A chestnut. I have heard you tell the joke twenty-seven times, and I am sure it was a chestnut."