From the Sligo Times, date unknown:
In many parts of Co. Sligo hares are now practically unknown because of the unreasonable laughter to which they have been subjected in recent years.
The Sligo Times was published from 1909–1914. I haven’t seen this superb typo in its original context, but I’d like to think it’s genuine. It appears in A Steroid Hit the Earth, an amusing misprint-o-rama by Martin Toseland.
Who’d have guessed hares were so sensitive to mockery?
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hmm if they are susceptible to mockery then they may also be highly sensitive to swearing… And thus an new sport – Hare Cursing!
Good one, Jams! Hare cursing might not be very polite, but it would be immeasurably less cruel than coursing.
While I’m at it here is a favourite typo:
It’s man’s laughter that’s really been a problem in Ireland through the centuries.
It took me years to figure out that straphangers were New York City commuters that hung from a strap, rather than a strange word “stra-phange-er” meaning “traveler” or some such.
What good is laughter unless it is reasonable, I ask?
XO
WWW
The way hares stand up in a field (observed recently on a walk on a hill) is quite amusing, though…
Jams: That makes me think of excretions sooner than exceptions. (P.S. I shortened your link for tidiness’ sake.)
John: Man’s laughter, indeed. And the “laugh of lost men”, in Myles na gCopaleen’s memorable phrase. I see how straphangers could mislead; the str- and -angers suggests a split strangers, encouraging the strange form. There’s a hint of phalange in there too. It’s a word that really deserves a hyphen.
WWW: Oh, I don’t know about that. The odd bout of mad, maniacal cackling does one no harm!
Jonathan: They’re not without intrinsic comedy, it’s true, but the report makes me imagine a prolonged, systematic assault of derisive chuckling. The poor hares.
Hare today and gone tomorrow.
Hare not what your country can do for you…
(sorry!)
Marc, Claude: Ah, very bunny.
Fury in the Laughterhouse could have made a hareish song of that.
Sean: Indeed! I bet the hares were especially fond of these albums: The Hearing and the Sense of Balance and Home Inside.
Ha ha ha …
This also appears in a 1960s paperback Funny Ha Ha and Funny Peculiar
Thanks for letting me know, Steve. It’s a surreal typo waiting to happen.
Were there any rabbis in Co. Sligo at the time, or had they been laughtered as well?
This is getting more surreal by the day.