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From: gmf@uvacs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Subject: Origins of term 'Shaggy Dog Story'
Message-ID: <1217@uvacs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Mar-84 23:11:46 EST
Article-I.D.: uvacs.1217
Posted: Fri Mar 30 23:11:46 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Apr-84 01:23:07 EST
Lines: 29


   I remember the original shaggy dog story from the time of the 2nd
World War, which is when it originated or at least became popular.
The basic story concerned a woman whose very shaggy dog was missing.
She advertises for it in a newspaper.  A man finds a very shaggy dog,
and figures it must be the one.  So he goes to the woman's house, knocks
on the door, and tells her he's found her dog.  She looks at it and
says, "Oh, it isn't  that  shaggy."

   The point was to fill the story with many, many details such as the
man first having to make a visit to someone before he delivers the dog,
then temporarily losing the dog, then going to the wrong house, and so
on.  The details could vary from telling to telling, since in the end
they were irrelevant.  The idea was to make the story go on as long as
the audience would take it, maybe a half hour or more.  Then, after the
flat and pointless ending, the teller would stop and wait.  Usually
there was a strange silence at first.  What happened after the listeners
realized the story was over depended on their tempers and temperaments.
Some people got very angry.

   There were numerous such stories -- or frameworks for stories --
circulating during the 2nd World War, and they became known generically
as "shaggy dog" stories.  I guess they helped fill the empty time which
attaches itself to military operations -- "hurry up and wait", while
being moved from one part of the world to another, while off duty in
some remote place, while waiting for someone to attack.


     Gordon Fisher