# A creator concealed in a schoolroom punchline

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH04.P015](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH04.P015/#char=356,383): "Lord, how you made me jump!"

The joke turns on two senses of making someone jump: startling a creature and creating a creature whose characteristic activity is jumping. Chesterton adds a third element in his explanation: the frog enjoys the activity it has received. The riddle thus compresses surprise at existing and pleasure in existence into one utterance. It also lets an everyday exclamation become an address to a creator. This is an interpretation of the wording, not an independently documented history of the joke.

The passage is already present on p. 83 of the London Bodley Head edition of *Orthodoxy* (1908), inspected through Wikisource’s page transcription. Chesterton describes a memory from boyhood, but names neither a teller nor a riddle book. No independent pre-1908 witness was located in the searches undertaken here. The text therefore supports his claim to remember the riddle; it does not establish its author, date of origin, or circulation before his childhood. [Text and witness](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Orthodoxy_(1908).djvu/97).

## Sources

- [G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (London: Bodley Head, 1908)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Orthodoxy_(1908).djvu/97), Chapter IV, p. 83; Wikisource page transcription, proofread but not validated
- [Orthodoxy (1908), edition index](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:Orthodoxy_(1908).djvu), Bibliographical metadata: year, publisher, location

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