A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from May 31, 2018
“A bar was walked into by the passive voice” (bar joke)

“A guy walks into a bar…” is a typical form of what has been called the “bar joke.”
     
“A bar was walked into by the passive voice.”
 
The joke (“The bar was walked into by the passive voice”) originated in the article “Seven Bar Jokes Involving Grammar and Punctuation” by Eric K. Auld on McSweeney’s on November 8, 2011. “A bar was walked into by the passive voice” was posted on Language Matters on September 20, 2014.
   
     
Wikipedia: English passive voice
The passive voice is a grammatical “voice”. The noun or noun phrase that would be the object of a corresponding active sentence (such as “Our troops defeated the enemy” ) appears as the subject of a sentence or clause in the passive voice (”The enemy was defeated by our troops”).
 
McSweeney’s
NOVEMBER 8, 2011
LISTS
SEVEN BAR JOKES INVOLVING GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION
ERIC K. AULD
(...)
6. The bar was walked into by the passive voice.
   
Twitter
range
@djrange
6. The bar was walked into by the passive voice. via http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/seven-bar-jokes-involving-grammar-and-punctuation
7:05 AM - 8 Nov 2011
 
Google Groups: alt.callahans
Bad grammar will get you every time….
John W. Vinson
11/14/11
Stolen from another newsgroup:
 
From http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/seven-bar-jokes-involving-grammar-and-punctuation :
(...)
6. The bar was walked into by the passive voice.
 
Google Groups: alt.usage.english
The Legendary Bar Jokes Thread    
Anton Shepelev
12/2/11
(...)
(6)  [Eric K. Auld]  The bar was walked into by the passive voice.
   
Google Books
Grammar for Grown-ups
By Katherine Fry and Rowena Kirton
London, UK: Square Peg
2012
Pg. 262:
‘Seven Bar Jokes’ by Eric K. Auld
(...)
6 The bar was walked into by the passive voice.
     
Language Matters
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Updated Humour for Intelligent People
(...)
2. A was walked into by the passive voice.
 
Legible
A legal-writing teacher walks into a bar . . .
This entry was posted in Humor on January 15, 2016.
(...)
A bar was visited by the passive voice.
 
Google Groups: Dicta
After bad new, a few things to make us smile
anna.durbin
02/26/18
(this was shared by my fellow English major classmate.)  But RIP, Susan.  We miss you.
(...)
A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
     
Twitter
Charles Dodgson
@CHDodgson
1/6 A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.
A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.
Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”
6:47 PM - 27 Feb 2018
 
Reddit—Writing
A dangling participle walks into a bar… (self.writing)
submitted March 10, 2018 by Pale_King101
(...)
A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
 
14 March 2018, The Mercury (Durban, South Africa), “‘Twas at a gathering of the clans,” pg. 19:
A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

Posted by Barry Popik
New York CityRestaurants/Bars/Coffeehouses/Food Stores • Thursday, May 31, 2018 • Permalink


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