Handbags!

The Englishman's, Irishman's and Scotsman's wives go shopping one day to a big department store. While they are there a fire breaks out. Everyone in the store is killed, including the three women. Their husbands are summoned to the local police station where a policewoman breaks the news to them: "I'm afraid sirs, that we believe your wives were killed in the fire at the department store. However the fire was so intense we cannot identify the bodies. Only their handbags survived the blaze. Can you identify your wives' handbags from these three found in the store?"

The three men all look at the handbags and each one is able to identify one of the handbags as belonging to his wife. With all handbags accounted for the policewoman leaves the men to deal with their grief in peace. The three men sit in silence for a while, then the Englishman opens his wife's handbag and rummages through the contents, finally pulling out a half-empty packet of cigarettes and says "All these years married and I never knew the old girl smoked."

The Scotsman looks into his wife's handbag and pulls out a half-empty bottle of scotch. "Jings, I knew her all that time an ah didnae ken ma missus drank."

The Irishman empties his wife's handbag onto the floor, looks through the contents and picks up a half empty packet of condoms. "'Saints preserve us! All dese years an oi never knew me wife was a man."

Handbag or Purse

In American English, a purse is a small bag, also called a handbag.

In British English, a purse is a small money container similar to a wallet, but typically used by women and including a compartment for coins, with a handbag being considerably larger.

A purse or handbag is often fashionably-designed, and is used to hold a number of items such as a wallet, keys, tissues, makeup, a hairbrush, feminine products, or other items.

Handbag Variations

An antique Indian female purseThe word purse is originally derived from the Latin bursa, from the Greek, meaning oxhide.

Purses are usually carried by women, though men sometimes carry one as a smaller alternative to a backpack; such a purse is sometimes self-consciously termed a murse or manbag (portmanteaus "man" with "purse" and "handbag" respectively). It can also be called a man-purse. Such bags are often similar or identical to messenger bags.

Coin purses are small purses, just large enough to hold money and cards.

A medium-to-small-sized purse with a short handle, designed to be carried (clutched) in one's hand is often called a clutch.

A larger purse with two handles is often called a tote.

A pocketbook is similar to a purse (in the British English sense), but allows the carrying of sheets of paper as well.

A security bag protects the carrier from travel theft. The purse includes an invisible stainless steel strap sewn into the fabric and a protectant on the main zipper.

Types of handbags

Crocodile skin handbags in a conservation exhibit at Bristol Zoo, EnglandClutch: Small, usually evening bag without a handle.

Satchel: large bag with small handle that is carried on the arm rather than on the shoulder

Duffle: A large bag usually used for travel or sports

Tote: A medium to large bag with two straps

Messenger bag : A bag with a long strap to be worn across the body.

Handbag Trivia

In the Oscar Wilde play, The Importance of Being Earnest, as a baby the protagonist, Jack Worthing, was found in a handbag in the cloakroom at Victoria Station, prompting Lady Bracknell's famous exclamation "A handbag?"

A survey of shoppers at Lakeside Shopping Centre in Essex found that the average 30-year-old woman owns 21 handbags and buys a new one every three months, adding up to 111 over the course of a lifetime.