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Collapse of stout party

English translation: standard conventional punchline for a joke, associated with Punch magazine

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
English term or phrase:Collapse of stout party
Selected answer:standard conventional punchline for a joke, associated with Punch magazine
Entered by: Charles Davis

04:45 Nov 27, 2018
English language (monolingual) [PRO]
Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature
English term or phrase: Collapse of stout party
Hello everyone!

I'm currently translating a piece from Julian Barnes's Love,etc and can't make head or tail of the phrase "collapse of stout party". There's practically nothing on the web but what I understood is that it refers to some joke with no information about the joke itself. Could you please explain to me what the phrase is about?

Thank you in advance!
Maria
standard conventional punchline for a joke, associated with Punch magazine
Explanation:
In practice it's simply a way of ending a joke, or used to be in Victorian times, and it's survived as a phrase without any exact meaning. It was supposedly used as the punchline of jokes in Punch, a humorous magazine founded in the mid-nineteenth century:

"The meaning of “collapse of stout party” is not precise. It was regularly used in Punch magazine, and was apparently a favourite punchline of Victorian anecdotes. The meaning is a mixture of:
· Ho ho ho!
· Tee hee chortle chortle!
· So there. With knobs on.
· Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
· Gotcha.
· Get out of that one.
· Nah nah nah nah nah."
https://2005-09.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/bl...

Actually people don't seem to have found examples of the exact phrase in Punch. Here's a Punch cartoon from 1902 in which one of the characters is called "Stout Party" (and he certainly is):

"A BIG ORDER
Stout party (to waitress): Put me on a pancake, please!"
https://punch.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Phil-May-Cartoo...

That is, "put a pancake on for me" (make me a pancake), but understood to mean "put me on top of a pancake" (that would be a big order). Not exactly side-splitting, but still.

I always imagined that it means that something so funny happened or was said that left the "stout party" (fat person) was lost for words or deflated, but actually it's just an (old-fashioned) conventional phrase.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr (2018-11-27 05:48:03 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

I've just looked up the context in which it's used by Julian Barnes in Love Etc. I found it here:
https://serchisbook.com/pulse-81194-by-julian-barnes.html

I won't quote it because it's a bit risqué, but basically you just want a phrase that means "That was telling him, wasn't it?", "He walked right into that", or words to that effect.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr (2018-11-27 06:00:33 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Or "That took the wind out of his sails!" (i.e. deflated him, left him lost for words).
Selected response from:

Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 00:37
Grading comment
Selected automatically based on peer agreement.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED
4 +7standard conventional punchline for a joke, associated with Punch magazine
Charles Davis


  

Answers


50 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +7
collapse of stout party
standard conventional punchline for a joke, associated with Punch magazine


Explanation:
In practice it's simply a way of ending a joke, or used to be in Victorian times, and it's survived as a phrase without any exact meaning. It was supposedly used as the punchline of jokes in Punch, a humorous magazine founded in the mid-nineteenth century:

"The meaning of “collapse of stout party” is not precise. It was regularly used in Punch magazine, and was apparently a favourite punchline of Victorian anecdotes. The meaning is a mixture of:
· Ho ho ho!
· Tee hee chortle chortle!
· So there. With knobs on.
· Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
· Gotcha.
· Get out of that one.
· Nah nah nah nah nah."
https://2005-09.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/bl...

Actually people don't seem to have found examples of the exact phrase in Punch. Here's a Punch cartoon from 1902 in which one of the characters is called "Stout Party" (and he certainly is):

"A BIG ORDER
Stout party (to waitress): Put me on a pancake, please!"
https://punch.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Phil-May-Cartoo...

That is, "put a pancake on for me" (make me a pancake), but understood to mean "put me on top of a pancake" (that would be a big order). Not exactly side-splitting, but still.

I always imagined that it means that something so funny happened or was said that left the "stout party" (fat person) was lost for words or deflated, but actually it's just an (old-fashioned) conventional phrase.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr (2018-11-27 05:48:03 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

I've just looked up the context in which it's used by Julian Barnes in Love Etc. I found it here:
https://serchisbook.com/pulse-81194-by-julian-barnes.html

I won't quote it because it's a bit risqué, but basically you just want a phrase that means "That was telling him, wasn't it?", "He walked right into that", or words to that effect.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr (2018-11-27 06:00:33 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Or "That took the wind out of his sails!" (i.e. deflated him, left him lost for words).

Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 00:37
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 236
Grading comment
Selected automatically based on peer agreement.

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  philgoddard: It's simply not true that there's "practically nothing on the web". The first hit explains it in detail.
48 mins
  -> Thanks, Phil. There is quite a lot about it, but not all the references really explain it clearly.
agree  Jack Doughty
2 hrs
  -> Thanks, Jack!
agree  Victoria Britten
3 hrs
  -> Thanks, Victoria :-)
agree  Charlotte Fleming
3 hrs
  -> Thanks, Charlotte :-)
agree  B D Finch: Also worth noting the earlier meaning of "stout": strong, reliable, courageous.
4 hrs
  -> Thanks, Barbara. Perhaps the original expression played on that meaning.
agree  Yvonne Gallagher
6 hrs
  -> Many thanks, Yvonne :-)
agree  Robert Carter: Perhaps I'm too accustomed to the "albur", but I think Barnes is using it as a double-entendre there, given the subject matter.
14 days
  -> Quite possibly! Thanks for "albur", by the way; I didn't know it :-)
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