Bored of normality? Why not go daft?

[venta]

From the spurious enquiries department:

[Poll #1795486]

Comments

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Whoops, got the answer slightly wrong.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

You could change your answer and nobody would ever know ;-).

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

But why *is* a raven like a writing desk?

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat, of course!

I also like Poe wrote on both but it's not Word of God, unlike the first.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

I originally assumed there was a semi-missing comma after "Why" and the obvious answer was something along the lines of "Why no, no it is not." But it evidently isn't The Obvious Answer.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I am disappointed, because I remember once hearing a Fantastic Answer to this riddle. Sadly, I can't remember it and have never managed to re-discover it :(

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

I am convinced that "is" and "are" are equal in correctness and incorrectness to each other in this circumstance and any attempt to discern the two is wrong-headed folly. It's not meant to make sense.

(Edited: "wrong-headed" is a bit strong, on reflection; I'm grumpy today)

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

I was at a Bob Dylan concert in Wellington, NZ, and during the interval there was a long queue to use the gents. (Bear with me, I'll get to the point in a minute...)
In the queue, there was a very loud drunk, who was so drunk that he could barely stand and was slurring his words. I will miss out the words you are currently researching.
He asked the assembled company "what's the difference between a ****?" and unsurprisingly one of the large group obligingly replied "*** ** *** **** *** **** *** ****", as indeed I might have done, to which the drunk responded "ah, there's always someone who knows".
He then delivered the following joke perfectly:

What's the difference been an entomologist and an etymologist?
An etymologist knows that a centipede has a hundred legs - and an entomologist knows that it doesn't.

[augeas.livejournal.com]

What eats ants and got beaten up at school?

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

the teacher's pet aardvark?

[augeas.livejournal.com]

Yes, a vark that isn't 'ard.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

A vark?

[bondagewoodelf.livejournal.com]

Mine does sound better in the original Dutch ...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Is it really a real Dutch expression?
If so, that makes me happy :)

[bondagewoodelf.livejournal.com]

Not an expression, but it's a real Dutch joke.

In Dutch it goes, untranslated.

"Wat is het verschil tussen een krokodil?"

"Des te groener, des te zwemt-ie!"

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, that's splendid :)

[zotz]

That's a bit like another old one, "Why is a mouse when it spins?"

The answer, obviously, is "Because the higher the fewer."

[damerell.livejournal.com]

I cannot read "single word", whoops.