NPR : All Things Considered

'That's A Clown Question, Bro' Or The Rhetorical Comeback Rounding Twitter

By: Eyder Peralta // June 13, 2012
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If Twitter has its way, "That's a clown question, bro." will join "Don't tase me, bro." in the annals of popular rhetorical comebacks.

"That's a clown question, bro" comes from 19-year-old baseball phenom Bryce Harper. That's what he told a Canadian journalist yesterday, following his second three-hit game in a row.

The journalist asked the Nationals' Harper if he was going to celebrate by drinking a beer, being that the legal drinking age in Canada is 19.

Harper, who is Mormon, rolled his eyes and said, "I'm not going to answer that. That's a clown question, bro."

In truth, the phrase is much funnier in print and removed from the context, as you'll see in this video:

But that hasn't stopped Twitter. The phrase has ignited debate. There is a T-shirt now. And many have noted that in a confrontational interview today, NBA Commissioner David Stern should have resorted to the Harperism.

Instead, when Jim Rome asked Stern, "Was the fix in for the [NBA] lottery?" He replied, "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" an answer that called into question the trickery of the phrasing.

Chris Moody, a political reporter for Yahoo!, tweets:

"Jay Carney didn't say "that's a clown question, bro" during today's WH presser. This is how I feel about that: http://bit.ly/NfSdKU"

We'll note that unlike "Don't tase me, bro." the Harperism has not gotten an entry on Urbandictionary.com.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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