What was the best thing before sliced bread, and why is Larry so happy?

Answer 1

Sliced bread was invented in 1931. Before that the best thing was the electric toaster, pretty hard to use with unsliced bread as the slices may be too thick to fit in it. Sliced bread solved that one.

As to Larry.

Who is Larry and why is he happy?”

[A] A neat question, but American readers in particular will need some background before I can address it. The phrase happy as Larry seems to have originated as either Australian or New Zealand slang sometime before 1875. This date is earlier than that given in most dictionaries, but H W Orsman, editor of the Oxford Dictionary of New Zealand English, has traced it to a New Zealand writer named G L Meredith, who wrote in about 1875: “We would be as happy as Larry if it were not for the rats”. Unlike other odd phrases—the Australian happy as a boxing kangaroo in fog time and the New Zealand happy as a sick eel on a sandspit come to mind—it was meant positively: extremely happy or content.

There’s a suggestion that it comes from the name of the nineteenth-century Australian boxer Larry Foley (1847-1917), though why he was especially happy nobody now seems able to say. Perhaps he won a lot of contests? (He was certainly one of those who originated gloved boxing rather than bare-knuckle fighting in Australia and his name is still remembered there.) But this origin is far from certain and the early New Zealand reference renders it less so, without ruling it out altogether.

Dr Orsman’s suggestion is that it is more likely to come from an English dialect source, larrie, joking, jesting, a practical joke. Another possible link is with the Australian and New Zealand term larrikin for a street rowdy or young urban hooligan, recorded from the late 1860s but known especially in both countries from the 1880s onwards in reference to a specific subculture. Like other groups before and since, the larrikins had their own dress style, in their case very neat and rather severe. The word may well have come from English dialect larrikin for a mischievous youth, once common in Warwickshire and Worcestershire, which itself is closely related to larrie. Either of these sources could afterwards have been reinforced through a supposed connection with Larry Foley.

Answer 2

The slice. Larry is happy because he knows me.

Answer 3

Before sliced bread they best thing was a harpsichord; Larry is so happy because he has several harpsichords as well as a dozen loaves of sliced bread.

Answer 4

the wheel has to be on the list of best things ever made. And which Larry are u referring to?

Answer 5

bread

and

As for Larry It's all relative.... sometimes he's moderately happy, sometimes he's ecstatically happy and sometimes he's somewhere in between... he's happier that way, life would be very boring if he felt the same way all the time..... me... at the moment I'm as happy as Larry is on one of his more reflective days!!!

Answer 6

I know a Larry and he's always happy (in a gay sort of way)!!!

Answer 7

I asked a farmer once, and he said "baled hay". Don't know about Larry though.

Answer 8

because he found sliced bread.

Answer 9

un sliced bread, hes had a shag

Answer 10

pencils - because he is a stooge