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From: barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: Re: OFFENSIVE TO POLISH
Message-ID: <5051@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 20-Aug-85 23:23:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.5051
Posted: Tue Aug 20 23:23:33 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 14:01:50 EDT
References: <36700045@convex> <1303@pyuxa.UUCP>
Reply-To: barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin)
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 31

In article <1303@pyuxa.UUCP> ajf@pyuxa.UUCP (A Figura) writes:
>In <36700045@convex>, tmorris writes a long joke that starts:
>
>>	It seems that during the French revolution , those facing execution
>> were given their choice of lying face up or face down on the guillotine.
>
>He proceeds to tell how an Englishman and an aristocrat lay face up
>and were spared as the blade stopped just short of their neck.
>He continues:
>> The next victim was a Polish traveller , caught in the outbreak of the
>> revolution . 
>> 	"Do you wish to go face up ,or face down ? ", the executioner asked.
>> " I'm not going anywhere until you get that damn thing fixed "...
>
>The way *I* heard it, he asks to go face up like the others.  Then
>executioner is just about to drop the blade when the Polishman yells out
>"WAIT!"   He proceeds to point up to the guillontine and tells the
>executioner: "So *that's* what making the blade stick..."
>
>(Don't you just hate it when somebody screws up a punchline.)

I've heard that version, but the character is an engineer (and the
others usually a mathematician and physicist), rather than an .
It doesn't work as well with  because the character is usually
not portrayed as being smart enough to figure out why something is
broken.  We engineers are smart enough to fix things, but lack the
common sense to know when NOT to!
-- 
    Barry Margolin
    ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics
    UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar