Wiktionary

shaggy dog story

See also: shaggy-dog story

English

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Etymology

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Uncertain; probably from one of two jokes, one in which a protracted search for an alleged remarkably shaggy, talking dog ends in the discovery of the dog which, though it can indeed talk, is disappointingly not so shaggy after all; or one in which an even more protracted search for the shaggiest dog in the world ends in the utterly anticlimactic punchline “Now that’s a shaggy dog!”.

Pronunciation

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  • Hyphenation: shag‧gy dog sto‧ry

Noun

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shaggy dog story (plural shaggy dog stories)

  1. An intentionally long-winded joke or tale featuring the narration of typically irrelevant details, and usually ending with an absurd or pointless punchline which is often a pun or Spoonerism on a known catchphrase, with the intended humour deriving from the combination of the excessive length and the anticlimax.

Alternative forms

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Derived terms

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See also

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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