Talk:Scrod

I don't see how anyone can say…

...this isn't encyclopedic, when it's one of only two things known to the general public about scrod. [unsigned]

Please clarify. 71.239.87.100 (talk) 05:36, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

A funny joke about scrod and Boston

When I was a kid I went to college in Boston (where there are over a hundred 4-year degree-granting institutions by the way). I majored in English, and to make ends meet I drove a cab at night.

This guy gets into my cab and asks to be taken to the airport. He was in town for business and he's leaving. Then he says to me,

"I was kinda busy this trip, and there are some things I didn't get to try. Where do you suppose I could have got scrod around here?"

I thought for a second, then I said,

"You know, I've been driving this cab for three years now and I must have heard that question a thousand times, but that's the first time anyone's asked it in the pluperfect subjunctive."

I follow the story, but I don't see why it is a joke. Can you explain? — Pekinensis 02:49, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Do you know what pluperfect subjunctive is? Or pun? This isn't really a pun; it's a joke about whether there might be a pluperfect subjunctive declension of "screw" and whether it might be a pun of the somewhat localized name of a type of fish, and the culture of a community steeped in education. Blair P. Houghton 03:40, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. I do indeed know what a "pluperfect subjunctive" is, and now I understand the joke, but wouldn't it have been better to end with "passive pluperfect subjunctive"? The tense and mood of the verb are the same in the intended and the unintended meanings, but there's only a passive in the unintended one. — Pekinensis 03:55, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

When I was growing up I was a victim of "new english". It was sort of like new math only worse. They decided we didn't need to know how to diagram sentences and words like noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc. were passe. As a result I didn't learn english grammer. The fact that I know what a verb and noun are is due to the fact that I took french and there was no "new french" to prevent my learning those two. Anyway, I heard this joke many many years ago and it was only because I decided to look up plusperfect subjunctive that I found this site. I am please that Pekinensis know what a pluperfect subjunctive is but I still don't. Can someone please give me a definition? If I were to have been taught that I would now know. (I think I may have just used it). Sally

Sally: Pluperfect subjunctive tense ? -- pne (talk) 16:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Let's get serious here, while getting funny. "Scrod" may very well mean something specific re. fish, but it is very close to "screwed," and thus is the basis for many jokes, the simplest of which is, "I got scrod in Boston." To ignore this on a Wikipedia page is to deny a sense of humor and/or an American tradition, resulting in an incomplete encyclopedia. Whbjr (talk) 00:43, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I heard a version of this joke about 20 years ago on BBC Radio 4 in the transatlantic version of Round Britain Quiz , as I recall, as a contribution from the American team. The visitor to Boston wishes to taste the local delicacies and asks "Where could I have Scrod?"; to which the answer was "That's a question I'm often asked, but not usually in the pluperfect subjunctive". Sasha (talk) 10:24, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Not to distract from the hilarity above but...

"In fact the term "Scrod" was coined by Guy Perry, the Maitre de for many years at the venerable Parker House Hotel is Boston, to describe the hotel restaurant's "fresh catch" even before the chef returned from the fish market."

This was just added by Jaclyns with no source. It also doesn't actually make sense with the rest of the text. I've googled this fact and found a few mentions of it, and its mentioned on the page for Parker House Hotel. I can't really find a definitive source that has any reputation - all the sources seem to be hotel websites... EAi 23:16, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

My dad told me once about how the term 'Scrod' and 'Shrod' came about from a restaurant in Boston once (I don't remember the name of the place). The C in 'scrod' meant "cod" and the H in "shrod" meant haddock. If the place had haddock for the day, they announced having shrod and if they announced they had scrod they had cod. It was supposed to be "the freshest catch". He grew up in Boston and so did I. -Mike —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.60.234.86 (talk) 22:52, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

"Scrod is said to be an acronym for Seamans Catch Received On Deck, which simply means the freshest of the days catch." Unsupported claim, with no basis in fact. Like the paragraphs above, claiming the Perry invented it, or that C or H mean something about the fish, the word "scrod" has a lot of baseless folklore associated with it. None of that nonsense belongs in an encyclopedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.68.134.1 (talk) 17:30, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

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If you don't understand jokes, then don't edit the joke

I just inserted the better wording of this joke and someone immediately deleted my addition. This is one of the three or four funniest jokes I've ever heard when it's told properly. The one in the article is not told properly; it's barely funny at all. No matter how you tell it, it's not going to be grammatically correct, so the grammatical discussions are not really relevant. But the better version at least comes closer to conveying the pun to the reader.

The better version I added, which someone immediately deleted, has the tourist say, "If one were to want to get scrod around here, where might one go?" and the cabby says, "You know, I must have heard that question a thousand times, but never in the pluperfect subjunctive." The pluperfect part of the pun is "screw/scrod" and the (silly approximation of) the subjunctive part of the joke is the "if one were to ..." and "where might one go?" In the wording of the joke given in this article, I don't see how the indicative is evoked at all, even in a silly sense. When I read it I just shake my head and think, "Huh?" In the better statement of it, it's a hilarious double-whammy -- the pluperfect and the subjunctive.

I don't have time for wikiwars, especially over a joke, so to hell with it. But you, whoever you are who is dictator of this page, have eviscerated this sublime pun with the inferior statement of it. Worldrimroamer (talk) 12:17, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

More on scrod

Only my opinion, but I doubt that the Bostonians telling this joke and those laughing at it (before it was even finished, as they already knew the punch line) cared about the grammatical tense of the verb! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.7.217.14 (talk) 23:05, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Please attend to the poor state of this article

It is largely about etymology, drawn from a blog, and is simple not encyclopedic at all. What is more, the factual information (fish weights, etc.) is unrereferenced, and therefore unverifiable. This is a very poor article indeed. 71.239.87.100 (talk) 05:36, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Unsourced speculation moved here for review

The following content from the earlier version of the article:

In Dutch, schrod means "to fillet", another possible etymology for "scrod". In Norwegian, "skrei", from skrida which in Old Norse meant to wander, is the ancient name for a distinct type of cod that wanders along the Norwegian coast (as opposed to the coastal cod called "torsk" that typically remains in one region). It could be hypothesized that the Vikings brought this old term to England, where it through time evolved into the word scrod.

was removed to here, after neither the Dutch nor the Norwegian translations could be confirmed. WIthout this confirmation, and without citations, this content is disputed, and unverifiable. Note, the language and aim of "It could be hypothesized…" is also objectionable as WP:OR, Le Prof 71.239.87.100 (talk) 09:28, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

This sounds to me like an earlier (or simply misspelled?) version of the modern Norwegian word "skrei", which is used to describe a kind of cod that swims along the coast rather staying near it - the word apparently does indeed mean "wanderer". Also, having to swim against strong sea currents is said to make the fish more muscular, i.e. more fleshy. "Skrei" is regularly used on menus in Holland (where I live) as a name for this delicious fish. But, apart from all this, the article and the comments on it do seem to be a ragbag of often contradictory information, leading to one of the notorious "wikiwars".213.127.210.95 (talk) 16:30, 23 November 2017 (UTC)