Humor & Life Quote by Eric Morecambe

Morecambe’s line is a perfect miniature of his comedy: genial on the surface, quietly anarchic underneath. It opens like a model of suburban decency - the neighborly request, the easy “of course” - then swerves into a condition that collapses the very purpose of borrowing. A lawnmower you can’t take out of the garden is a lawnmower you can’t really use; the generosity is instantly revealed as a kind of weaponized politeness.

That’s the intent: to parody the social script of British niceness, where conflict is often managed through etiquette rather than honesty. Morecambe doesn’t have his character say “no.” He performs “yes” so hard it becomes a no, turning manners into a loophole. The laugh comes from that pressure point between what’s said and what’s meant - an everyday hypocrisy made absurdly literal.

The subtext is territorial: property lines, privacy, the quiet anxiety of lending anything that might come back damaged, late, or not at all. Rather than admit mistrust, the speaker smuggles it into a technicality. It’s stinginess dressed as reasonableness, the kind of emotional thrift people recognize because they’ve done it themselves.

Context matters, too. Morecambe and Wise built their fame on misdirection, wordplay, and the comedy of social roles slipping. This joke fits that tradition: domestic, familiar, and just sharp enough to puncture the cozy myth of the endlessly accommodating neighbor.