"What is musical and handy in a…

The Polish composer Frédéric François Chopin’s last name sounds like “shopping,” and the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt’s last name sounds like “list.” A popular riddle is:

Q: What is musical and handy in a supermarket?
A: A Chopin Liszt.

The joke of the two composers’ names has been cited in print since at least 1978.

Wikipedia: Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin (/ˈʃoʊpæn/; French: [fʁedeʁik fʁɑ̃swa ʃɔpɛ̃]; born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, 1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for the solo piano. He gained and has maintained renown worldwide as a leading musician of his era, whose “poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation.” Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw and grew up in Warsaw, which in 1815 became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he completed his musical education and composed his earlier works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising.

Wikipedia: Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt (German pronunciation: [ˈfʁants ˈlɪst]; Hungarian: Liszt Ferencz, in modern usage Liszt Ferenc, pronounced [ˈlist ˈfɛrɛnt͡s]; October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886) was a prolific 19th-century Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, music teacher, arranger, organist, philanthropist, author, nationalist and a Franciscan tertiary.

Liszt gained renown in Europe during the early nineteenth century for his prodigious virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was a friend, musical promoter and benefactor to many composers of his time, including Frédéric Chopin, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg, Ole Bull, Joachim Raff, Mikhail Glinka, and Alexander Borodin.

Google Books
The Crack-a-Joke Book
Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books
1978
Pg. 124:
What’s musical and handy in a supermarket?
A Chopin Liszt.

Google Books
Big Book of Silly Riddles
By Gyles Brandreth
New York, NY: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
1988
Pg. 19:
What is musical and handy in a supermarket?
A Chopin (shopping) Liszt.

Google Groups: rec.humor
List of “Hot Cross Puns”, and more
Harold Reynolds
8/13/93
Below is listed my collection of “Hot Cross Puns” (I stole this from a book somewhere).
(...)
What’s musical and handy in a supermarket? A Chopin Liszt.

Google Groups: alt.humor.puns
Musicians puns(first post)
I. M. Hilarious
2/24/96
Does a musician go to the grocery store with a Chopin Liszt?

Google Groups: alt.ozdebate
Handy Music
BK
12/21/02
What is musical and handy in the supermarket? ..
A Chopin Liszt.

Google Books
Penguin Pocket Jokes
By David Pickering
London, UK: Penguin Books
2006
Pg. ?:
How did the musician remember what he had to get when he went shopping? He wrote a Chopin Liszt.

Twitter
Bollywood Sargam‏
@bollywoodsargam
Music jokes - 7683 Joke: What is musical and handy in the supermarket.
A Chopin Lizst. .... http://tinyurl.com/qtmw3s
9:57 PM - 4 Jun 2009

Google Books
The Mammoth Book of Really Silly Jokes:
Humour for the whole family
Edited by Geoff Tibballs
London, UK: Constable & Robinson Ltd
2011
Pg. ?:
What’s musical and useful in a supermarket?
A Chopin Liszt.

Google Books
Sensible Nonsense.. Frank’s Comic Pack:
Humour Pack Series
By Frank Paul
BookBaby
2014
Pg. ?:
Q: What’s musical and handy in a supermarket?A: A Chopin Liszt.

Twitter
Lucky Score‏
@LuckyScoreNet
What is musical and
handy in the
supermarket.
A Chopin Lizst.
#Joke from #MusicJokes in #Jokes, #Humor and #Satire
6:43 PM - 31 Oct 2017

“What is musical and handy in a supermarket?”/“A Chopin Liszt.”