From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!zeppo!wlk
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Title: Burma Shave ambiguity
Article-I.D.: zeppo.323
Posted: Mon Sep 27 09:13:05 1982
Received: Thu Sep 30 08:22:54 1982

I just read the following in a list of Burma Shave jingles:

	My man won't shave
	Sez Hilda Huz
	But I should worry
	Dora's does

My initial interpretation was based on reading the third line as

	but >I should worry?

and I chuckled at the thought of Hilda having an affair with Dora's
clean-shaven man.

Later, however, I wondered if the third line should read

	but I >should worry!

and Hilda was expressing anxiety over her inability, relative to Dora,
to get her man to shave.

The second interpretation is a better fit, I think, with the times and
places I have seen Burma Shave signs. Also, the practice of saying
"I should worry" to mean "I don't have to worry" strikes me as being
confined to the northeast.

But the first is funnier and is reinforced by the presence of the word
"but".

Should I worry?