That’s hydrogen. A hymen is the song they sing in church.

November 7, 2019 8:57 AM

That’s a hybrid. A hymen is the first element on the periodic table .

Please do click on the embedded tweet. Then the next one. And the next one. And the next one.

There are probably better examples. I couldn't get an unroller to iterate past the first embedded tweet, if some more twitter savvy one can do so, please do.

Context.

posted by signal (29 comments total)

Mod note: Link was originally messed up; think I fixed it to what was intended but let me know if it’s supposed to be something else.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:02 AM on November 7, 2019

It's fine, thanks.

Another branch with G.Willow Wilson.
posted by signal at 9:05 AM on November 7, 2019

Pretty sure it's the bad guy from Purim that they named the triangular pastries after.
posted by zamboni at 9:09 AM on November 7, 2019 [11 favorites]

I liked a branch where someone said a hymen was the secondary performer in a hip-hop act who gets the crowd worked up with interjections and exclamations.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:10 AM on November 7, 2019 [13 favorites]

Hymen? That's a total blam-blam.
posted by adamrice at 9:27 AM on November 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

I thought it was a salutation. Hi man!
posted by hilberseimer at 9:38 AM on November 7, 2019

Saving myself the clicking by waiting until this afternoon, when someone will have published an interactive visualization of all of these.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:55 AM on November 7, 2019

Wasn't that where Oscar Wilde went to gaol?
Oh, wait, that was Maidenhead.
posted by Bee'sWing at 10:26 AM on November 7, 2019 [15 favorites]

I watched this happen on twitter in real time, and hated every moment of it.
posted by AndNeverWell at 10:30 AM on November 7, 2019

This has hit chemistry twitter, and some of the connections are amusing.
posted by Canageek at 10:32 AM on November 7, 2019

Also, for those that don't know, this is a meme format that was very popular on tumblr, my partner DialMforMara knows more about that, I wasn't ever on tumblr much, guess I was a bit too old for it.

I should go back, I'd basically gotten a feed 90% of old 80s fantasy art when I'd left, with some other roleplaying and cyberpunk thrown in.
posted by Canageek at 10:33 AM on November 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

It also happens on Reddit on a pretty regular basis.
posted by bink at 10:51 AM on November 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

Is there an Ur example of this joke form? I was in one on Reddit a few years ago.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 12:45 PM on November 7, 2019

It also happens on Reddit on a pretty regular basis.

Fark too, when someone famous dies. What ensues is a series of RIP posts with photos of other famous people who have similar first or last names. Those people may or may not have passed. For example, in the thread for Elijah Cummings, people posted RIPs with photos of Elijah Wood and Alan Cumming.
posted by fuse theorem at 12:59 PM on November 7, 2019

Saw it once or twice in Slashdot back in the day (4 digit userid here)
posted by Dr. Curare at 2:29 PM on November 7, 2019

Is there an Ur example of this joke form? I was in one on Reddit a few years ago.

This was one of my grandmother's favourite games: Nein, was Sie meinen ist...
One person starts by describing a thing, without saying its name; in turn, others, having recognised the word, riff/protest "no, what you mean is...", describing something whose name sounds proximate but means some else altogether. Points/laughs for especially farflung near-homonyms.
posted by progosk at 2:43 PM on November 7, 2019 [7 favorites]

It really was an ur-meme
posted by Jon_Evil at 2:46 PM on November 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

The context is HORRIFIC.

Jesus fuck what is wrong with people.
posted by tzikeh at 3:25 PM on November 7, 2019 [11 favorites]

Is there an Ur example of this joke form?
Well, it was used as a recurring sketch on The Electric Company, an educational TV series which first aired in 1971.
Anybody know of earlier versions?
posted by cheshyre at 3:42 PM on November 7, 2019

"Hi guys!"was the greeting Ted Baxter gave everyone on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Everything else is irrelevant.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:47 PM on November 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

TV Tropes: Chain Of Corrections.

There's a Mad Magazine example from 1955, and it was apparently a staple of Fibber McGee and Molly, a 1930s radio show.
posted by zamboni at 4:43 PM on November 7, 2019 [10 favorites]

oh my god, my dad played this with me growing up. We can literally do it for ENTIRE DAYS.

(“Days? You mean the flower?”)
posted by mwhybark at 6:19 PM on November 7, 2019

zamboni: "There's a Mad Magazine example from 1955,"

Hola crap, I had that magazine growing up, with the Pogo satire. Never did understand the gag until right now.
posted by signal at 6:24 PM on November 7, 2019

Hymen? Hell it damn near killed 'im
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:03 PM on November 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

Is there an Ur example of this joke form?

Yes, and it held up pretty well once the cuneiform was deciphered:

 .==============.
//   That's a    \
||  cigarette.   |
||  A ziggurat   |
||    is two     |
|| violinists, a |
||  violist and  |
||   a cellist.  |
.\_______________/

posted by aws17576 at 12:38 AM on November 8, 2019 [11 favorites]

Unless it's a hydrogen sonata.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 4:31 AM on November 8, 2019 [1 favorite]

A hymen is a group of little gnomes that live inside of your flower.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 7:34 AM on November 8, 2019

t was won of hour favourite hunerus past times during familiar get togethers.
We could keep them going four ours or more.
posted by Burn_IT at 8:35 AM on November 8, 2019

We did a version of this in alt.usage.english a few decades ago, called a Govende. (We're still doing it, but we're not on USEnet any more. At least I'm not. Maybe other people are.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:14 AM on November 8, 2019