to ask for your help solving this impossible riddle/joke

[killingtime9198]

My best friend's family have a family 'joke', which she originally told me about when we were about 12/13. When she originally told me she didn't get the joke either, but then later did manage to work it out. When she first met her now husband he didn't get it, but he later also worked it out. I have never managed to get it, and every now and again I will remember the saga of this joke (this has been going on for about 20 years now), try desperately for a few days to work it out and then forget all about it for months.

Anyway, I wonder if the powers of mumsnet can either locate someone who has heard this 'joke' before, or who can work it out!

The joke is:

'There once was a man called Boswell. For short they called him Bos, and he walked up the post office steps.'

The joke is definitely NOT that there is no joke, and they're all having a laugh at me for trying to work it out - I am 100% confident of this.

Remember the riddle:
"There were thirty cows in a field and twenty eight chickens. How many didn't?"

If it had been written "There were thirty cows in a field and twenty ate chickens. How many didn't?" then there wouldn't have been a riddle. So I wouldn't assume that the SPAG in the riddle is accurate.

You need some new friends.

I don't see how any of these suggested answers would be something you arrive at and then think with certainty, "Yes, I've got it." There must be another answer.

It's the kind of riddle that I feel I should be pondering while putting my clothes through a mangle, or plucking a goose or something.

It's the kind of riddle that I feel I should be pondering while putting my clothes through a mangle, or plucking a goose or something.

I don't see how any of these suggested answers would be something you arrive at and then think with certainty, "Yes, I've got it." There must be another answer.

Agreed, otherwise it’s quite a disappointing riddle

Magicmonster you must be along the right lines with "four short"

Its gona be such an eye-roller when we find out.

The post of his steps?

Placemarking! I really hope we figure it out!

I don't see how any of these suggested answers would be something you arrive at and then think with certainty, "Yes, I've got it." There must be another answer.

Exactly. People are calling each other "genius" for tenuous, illogical gibberish.

I'm off for a dog walk now, and will be most annoyed if this isn't solved by the time I come back!

@killingtime9198 could you ask your friend whether any of the words in the version she wrote down for you need to be spelled differently in order for the answer to make sense?

Can I please appeal to everyone not to get too excited about finding out the answer.

The fact this "joke" doesn't exist anywhere on the internet means it was invented by someone in the family and is almost certainly a very weak/tenuous riddle that probably relies entirely on some in-joke and has little to no merit outside of that.

Itv will be some trick about how it can be read/said a different way -

Like he could be Bos
.............................Boswell
Or.........................Boswell Forshort

Oh God this is going to annoy me for the rest of my life now!

This reminds me a lot of the Owain Hughes joke from Gavin and Stacey.

That one is obvious, i couldn't figure out wgt people were puzzling over it.

Owain Hughes = Owe [money to] Wayne Hughes...before you ask, i don't

No, you've started this now, so text her so we can get an update...

If it is that they took some of his letters away, be sure to say "so disappointed, you all make such a fuss about it, I thought it had to be really clever and funny." Then refer to it as "the unfunny joke". Honestly, it is about excluding people, and feeling smug that you are brighter than others, otherwise you tell them the answer.

It's this going to be a Fork handles/four candles affair?

It's the kind of riddle that I feel I should be pondering while putting my clothes through a mangle, or plucking a goose or something.

Yes! Theres a twitter a/c called something like “victorian humour” and it’s reminiscent of some of the antique “jokes” ive seen on there.

I love riddles, but the idea of using them to exclude people is a bit mean.

It's a bit rubbish if it is the letter thing.

I think it’s simething to do with him being ‘well for short

Nope, still don't get it.
OP, get your bloody annoying friends to write it down.

FunkyKingston

This reminds me a lot of the Owain Hughes joke from Gavin and Stacey.

That one is obvious, i couldn't figure out wgt people were puzzling over it.

Owain Hughes = Owe [money to] Wayne Hughes...before you ask, i don't

No, the writers have said there is no joke there. They just put something inexplicable in to increase Gavin's puzzlement in his new setting. There's no solution to the joke.

And the 'wain' of 'Owain' isn't pronounced 'Wayne'.

And Jesus Christ in a Nissan Sunny, do they seem like a bunch of smug tossers, with their shite private 'joke'. If it was that good we'd have heard it from another source.

No, the writers have said there is no joke there. They just put something inexplicable in to increase Gavin's puzzlement in his new setting. There's no solution to the joke.

I stand corrected, seems i was finding meaning where there wasn't any.

I think the riddle is like "The game". If you think about it you lose. After all, they never bring it up, it's always the OP.

Ergo, you "solve" this completely shit riddle by never thinking about it.