User:BozMo/NoughtyFour

When the current year 2004 is abbreviated it becomes NoughtyFour, since this decade is the noughties in the same way that other decades are called the eighties, nineties etc.

The expression noughty one, noughty two etc. are quite often used in clerical offices etc Since noughty four sounds like naughty for it is sometimes used for humour pages. Since there is a long standing tradition dating to Dr Johnson and before to include small pieces of dry humour in dictionaries, and indeed since it is traditional for the makers of Turkish carpets to include a deliberate blemish since perfection belongs to God, it is proposed to add the correct time defintion for noughty four into WikiPedia and use the talk pages as a tall stories/ dry humour page where the tone is a little less serious than the rest of WikiPedia.

That is the proposal. I put nothing on the main page until people have reacted to it

BozMo

Below is example of NoughtyFour type humour, which got trolled out of the first posted discussion but I hope can stay until we have any consensus

The origins of the first NoughtyFour page are obscure; some see a traditional dating back to Dr Johnson's private joke entries (on patrons, Scotland etc.). Perhaps the oldest suggested source is the Nowegian God, Loki. It may even come form the (true) quotation from a two year old.

"Daddy, I know I am good for cuddles and stories but what am I naughty for?"

The gentle but serious contributors to the WikiPedia Christian pages refer to Bonhoffer's Ethics. "If the role of ethical reflection cannot be considered a knowledge of good and evil since a knowledge of good and evil already is a falling away from the origin" then we are naughty for knowing about NoughtyFour.

Regardless of the origins, NoughtyFour pages have become places of fun in many Wiki's, with the WikiPedia alone relegating the fun to the "Talk NoughtyFour" pages, to avoid giving the impression of in any way not taking life seriously, and allowing only a small entry in the main text as a private no to the existence of humour hidden deep within.

Humour place in NoughtyFour has to be reasonably good natured. Poking fun at ethnic groups is only allowed if they are part of a first world country with a population of over fifty million (so the French are fair game: we interupt for a NEWS ALERT: After the Madrid bombing president Chirac raised the French security status from "run" to "hide": the only higher classifications being "collaborate" and "surrender"). However true stories from smaller countries are allowed (such as the Nigerian newspaper headline: "three hundred headless bodies found in the bush: foul play suspected". Plots to overthrow the management of Wiki are not allowed and should be placed in Talk CaveofAdullam?.

Professional groups are not considered minorites (so reference to the London Yellow Pages which states: Boring - See under Civil Engineering) is allowed as is speculation as to why ONLY real civil engineers when this is pointed out to them feel it necessary to comment "of course, it is a different meaning of boring" in case the rest of us hadn't spotted it.

Particularly appropriate humour is that relating to children; such as the two year old who, having been told by granny that sucking his thumb would give him wind and make his tummy swell up, walked up to a heavily pregnant stranger in the Supermarket with the opening line "I know what you've been doing".

A mention could be give to the young nephew who recently approach his uncle with a request to sign the forms to open a premium rate (i.e. call recipient receives cash) phone line, since the phone company wouldn't allow a minor to do this.... and then explained he planned to phone everyone in the phone book for a milli-second from it and cash in from the curious souls who checked 1471 (last called received) when they got home and phoned to see who it was.

However, information simply to provoke mischief elsewhere, like the fact that the Clerk of Works at Trinity College Cambridge leaves a complete set of masterkeys to the college in the top right hand drawer of his desk and that his desk can be reached at night using only door-flex on bolted doors and a single credit card: or a reminder that when opening a door with a credit card it is important to jiggle the door not the card, has no place here and will be ignored by other readers.

Do we solemnly declare to make mischief (apologies to Harry Potter)? No. We are NoughtyFour fun. Naughty is as naughty does after all. And as every NoughtyFour year old knows the only way to turn a bad joke into a good one is endless repetition.