SPITTING IMAGE

What’s so funny about this? For this joke we have to consider the title and the speech balloon. They are both punning about the same thing. The title itself is pretty interesting. There are several theories as to its origin. The expression “spitting image” means “an exact likeness.” Some people think, the phrase was originally “splitting image” which is what you get when you split a wooden board. Although this sounds plausible, it’s not accurate. The spitting concept goes back to the 18th century and comes from the sense of one person looking so similar to another that the first person could have been spit out of the mouth of the other one. This was expressed in a number of different ways over the next 100 years until finally at the beginning of the 20th century someone described another person as a “spitting image.” OK, but what the heck is a phlegm fatale? It’s a pun actually on the phrase “femme fatale” a character in literature, theater and film, who is an attractive and seductive