Herding cats

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What's this nonsense some people say that something difficult or impossible is like herding cats, or that "you can't herd cats." Ridiculous. I herd some meowing last night.

so far as I know, I just made up this pun. A quick Google search did not seem to show anyone else saying it (at least the first two or three pages of results). Of course I could be wrong. It is so obvious. I plan to use this as part of my show patter when I play the "Smelly Cat" song from the Friends TV show.

Hurray! Congratulations on the invention of that pun!

At one point, I thought I was the first to come up with 'pathepic' (meaning 'epically pathetic'), but it turned out it was already on Urban Dictionary. That's how it goes...

When new members spell Asperger's as Asperger's I usually point out the error and mention that we don't herd snakes.

Asp = a type of snake.
Berger = a shepherd.
(For those who didn't know)

I do.

You can get them to go a certain direction by blowing on them,or gently encouraging with a stick or snake tongs.It's not good to get your face too close to the pit vipers,blow from a distance.One year there were a dozen or so Copperheads in the backyard.Mostly during dog days.Last year I had Timber Rattlers fighting or breeding in the front yard.

I herd cats. They go "Meow." I herd snakes too. They go "Hissssss."

Good pun!

I feel that this is appropriate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8

someone has used it before. I am not sure it is that well known of a source. where you were ninjaed from

I am not sure if this is rude though so please tell me.

That one got you a good, painful groan. Well done.

Is this meant to be a joke about "heard" and "herd", which have the same sound? I'm a foreigner and quite dumb with jokes and it took me some repeated reading and thinking just to figure out what the joke could be about. Could someone explain?

yes, it is a pun based on their identical sounds, even though they have different spellings and meanings. Puns and idioms are difficult sometimes even for native speakers to get.

There is a saying in English to express difficulty, that something is as difficult or impossible as herding cats. or that "you can't herd cats" the way you can herd sheep or cattle.

The word "heard" is the past tense of the verb "to hear," but "heard" sounds just like "herd."

I put them together. Here is the improved version of the joke.

Why do some people say you can't herd cats? I herd cats. They go "Meow."

You WERE right, ianorlin. I was NOT the first person to make this pun. However, the page you submitted as a source did not have this pun on it so far as I can find. I just checked the site you posted as the alleged source. I don't see the joke on that page. I see the expression "herding cats" which I did NOT claim to have invented. I claimed (tentatively) to have invented the pun on "heard" and "herd" in regard to that relatively well-known expression.

"...were ninjaed from?" Are you saying that perhaps they stole it from me? That wouldn't be likely since their page date is earlier and I only came up with this pun today (or thought I did). I know for sure that I did not deliberately ninja it from them (especially since I cannot find the pun on that page). So far as I know I came up with it completely on my own. If you are implying that I KNEW someone else came up with it first and I tried to claim credit dishonestly, well then yes you ARE being rude. I explained in my first post that I did not know for sure if anyone else had said it before me. If I had not put that disclaimer, but had instead puffed myself up saying "Oh look how great I am" then your response would not have been rude, but considering that I was up front about my uncertainty of whether or not I had said it first, well, it is rather mean of you to accuse me of stealing AND lying. Just an FYI. No hard feelings.

A little more digging with a better choice of key words in the search (herd cats meow) resulted in the following discovery.
Wiki answers on herd cats.
YEP SOMEONE BEAT ME TO IT! I KNEW IT WAS TOO OBVIOUS FOR NOBODY ELSE TO HAVE THOUGHT OF IT.
I withdraw my claim, but the modified improved form of the joke (see post immediately above this) may still count as some originality.

This reminds me of Eric Clapton and Chuck Berry. Many guitarists were influenced by them and copied their licks, but Clapton and Berry got most (or all?) of their riffs from earlier blues musicians who were not as well known to the general public. I think though that Clapton and Berry ended up with their own "style" slightly different from other players, by playing with those original riffs and varying them somewhat, just as I varied the herd-heard joke and improved it. The big difference though is I did not hear (or did not remember if I "herd") that pun before, while Clapton and Berry both spent many hours listening to earlier blues players and copying their riffs.

The preceding point reminds me of the My Sweet Lord plagiarism court case. In 1970 the former Beatle George Harrison wrote a song called My Sweet Lord that turns out to have the same melody and arrangement as a 1963 song by the Chiffons called He's So Fine. He may not have deliberately ripped them off, but apparently he had heard the song and it stuck in his mind. Then later he came up with his own words to the tune and didn't realize someone else had already done it. I am willing to give George the benefit of the doubt. He lost the case (the songs were just too close, even though George added more complex harmony and a distinctive slide guitar lead riff), but that still doesn't mean he did it deliberately. Also, I maintain that even if he had never heard the Chiffons song, it still may have been possible for him to have come up with the same melody and arrangement independently.

Howz about "You can't hurt cats"? I closed the door on my catz tail and he sounded pretty hurt ta me.

Got to comment on this. See, Finns knowing some Swedish tend to make exactly the same mistake in spelling, but this time –
Asp = aspen (correct)
Berg = mountain (correct), hence berger = inhabitant of a mountain (incorrect)

As a result of this partly correct reasoning, they think that the name is spelled Asperger, without taking into account that the name is German, not Swedish.